Global Conflict Reporting

Category: Asia

  • US Army General speaks on transfer of patriot air defense battalion to Middle East.

    US Army General speaks on transfer of patriot air defense battalion to Middle East.

    By. Scott Jackson

    04/10/2025

    Two days ago GCR reported that a number of US cargo planes were moving equipment to the Middle East. We have some more information on that today after Admiral Samuel J. Paparo revealed today at a hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee, that several Patriot battery’s had been taken from South Korea and the Indian Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) and transferred to Central Command (CENTCOM). The airlifts were cauteries out by dozens of C-17’s.

    Admiral Samuel J. Paparo, Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

    INDOPACOM covers the pacific and Indian Ocean region and is one of the most important military commands for the U.S. as they struggle against Chinese territorial interest with Taiwan as well as other parts of the first island chain. CENTCOM on the other hand, covers the Middle East region and is currently carrying out operations against the Iranian backed Houthis in Yemen. US assets have been reported as being moved to the Middle East in a suspected threat to Iran. US president Donald Trump has made it clear that if negotiations aren’t started with Iran, concerning Irans nuclear program, bombs will be the next step.

    While Iran has little in the way of modern aircraft capable of defending against these hypothetical US strikes, what they do have is hundreds of medium and long range ballistic missiles. High level officials from the Iranian government have made threats towards U.S. military bases in the region as well as the bases of anybody who could help the US with a strike on Irans. This is where the patriot systems come in.

    Patriot missile test

    A patriot battery is made up of the following.

    6-8 launchers

    1 radar set (AN/MPQ-53 phased-array radar)

    An Engagement Control station.

    An Electrical Power Plant

    And an Antenna Mast Group.

    Patriot PAC 2 launcher in service in Israel.
    AN/MPQ-53 phased-array radar

    A patriot battalion is made up of anywhere from 4-6 battery’s and 24-48 launchers as well as the single radar, power, and Fire Control Station each.

    The Patriots in South Korea are apart of an I rig rated defense system and cover US assets in the country like Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek and Osan Air Base.

    South Korea has asked the U.S. Department of Defense to temporarily deploy substitute assets, such as alternative air defense systems or combat aircraft, on a rotational basis to cover the hole left in their air defense network with the removal of these systems between February and March. The Patriots are expected to remain in the Middle East for the next at least six months.

    The U.S. has dozens of bases and locations in the region that could come under fire in the near future as tensions rise in the region. Iran has already threatened US forces as a retaliation for a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel all have their own defense networks (some supplemented by THAAD and Patriot systems.)

    Thank you for reading. I hope you get as much out of what I’m doing here as I get out of making these reports. If so I would invite you to join my Patreon. Doing that would help me more than I can describe. I’ve kept it as cheap as possible to become a member. It’s only a $1.00. However a dollar from even half of my Facebook followers would be a life changing amount of money for me and for this page.

    Audio content coming very soon. I’m also looking for interesting people to interview. If that’s you, contact me through my email.

    Thank you for all the support over the years. Here’s to many more.

    -Scott

  • North Korea officially shows off its new Airborne Early Warning/Command and control aircraft.

    Yet unnamed North Korean AEW&C’s

    By. Scott Jackson

    March 28th, 2025

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un revealed the country’s new airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) jet at an event at Pyongyang International Airport.

    The plane is designed around the body of a Ilyushin Il-76 Candid, the same plane used for the Russian’s Beriev A-50 “Mainstay” and the Chinese Shaanxi KJ-2000 “Mainring”. The name of the new North Korean airplane has not been released as of yet.

    Russian “Mainstay “ flanked by two Russian MiG-31’s.
    Chinese “Mainring”

    One thing noticed about the North Korean version of this aircraft is that it lacks the normal amount of antenna one would usually expect in these types of planes. This could signal a lack of features found in Russian and Chinese version. Another difference, at least to the Russian Mainstay is that the radome on top does not spin. This is similar to the Chinese version. Fixed radomes like this house 3 fixed phased array radars that each cover 120 degrees of the sky for a fill 369 degrees.

    North Korean leader Kim Jung Un climbs aboard new NK AWAC’s.
    Diagram showing the degrees of coverage from the plane.

    Images of the interior of the plane were also released showing at least seven individual workstations and several flatscreens for displaying mission data. AEW&C aircraft typically have large crews for operating the radar as well covering traffic control duties for friendly aircraft and mission control for different units. The exsist acne of this plane has been known for over a year as satilite pictures were released showing the plane under construction. The Warzone has an older write up on the possible capabilities of North Korean AEW&C’s that I would like to include.

    Kim Jung Un tours the interior of the NK Airborne Early Warning & Command airplane.

    “While it’s questionable to what degree more complex battle management and command and control functions could be mastered by North Korea, and hosted aboard an AEW&C aircraft, the ability to extend airborne radar coverage over considerable distances would be a great advantage, either providing prior warning of a potential attack from South Korea and/or tracking incoming aircraft and missiles during at least the opening moments of a conflict. The data it collects could also be shared with surface-to-air missile operators to help provide extra warning to enhance their operations. More importantly, it would provide a new tool for daily surveillance of North Korean and South Korean airspace and an avenue to learn to better perfect AEW&C capabilities.”

    They went in to include.

    “Ultimately, an airborne radar, as found in an AEW&C aircraft, provides a ‘look down’ capability that can spot aircraft, cruise missiles, or drones among the ground clutter and is far less restricted by high terrain compared to ground-based radars. No such radar was previously available to North Korea.”

    “On the other hand, there are no signs that North Korea is converting more than a single Il-76 for the AEW&C mission, which means this kind of coverage would be necessarily limited.”

    A shot of the plane under construction back in 2024.
    Shot from earlier this year.

    It’s likely but unclear how much support North Korea received from China or Russia in the construction of the craft. One thought is that Russia provided help with the project in exchange for North Koreas recent aid in Russia’s invasion into Ukraine. North Korea earlier sent around 10,000 soldiers to help in Russia Kursk region and just recently it was announced that 2,000 more were being dispatched to the region.

  • Video shows Chinese invasion ship’s in action for the first time.

    By. Scott Jackson

    Match 13, 2024
    A video, taken by Chinese beach goers shows one of Chinas new invasion ships.

    Several weeks ago, satellite imagery was taken of a number of Chinese PLA Navy harbor ships being in various states of being built and near complete. These ships have large bridges that can be deployed from the front as well as a system for raising the ships out of the rough waters making loading and unloading of equipment quick.

    This image released by Allsource analysis shows the shipyard where the harbor ships are being built. 4 are shown here with more being expected to be built.
    Image from Navel News shows a diagram of how the ships operate. The “Mulberry harbor” pulls up to the beach and deploys its stabilizers and bridge, other ships holding troops and vehicles pull up to the rear of the ship and unload straight through to the beach.

    These ships would allow China’s Navy to attempt to quickly land a sizable ground force at whatever point of an island as they wanted to. In a Taiwan invasion scenario these could be used to overwhelm defenders by spreading out the insertion points all across the island. China would also be able to quickly deploy such a large ground force that the U.S. would have little hope of managing to get them all off of the island without a long,drown-out confrontation that even if they could carry out would leave much of the island in ruin.

    There is little to these ships making the build time very quick.

    I reached out to PACOM but I’m still waiting on a statement. I’ll update if I get a response.

    Most amateur analysts seem to believe that these ships would make easy targets and wouldn’t last more than a few minutes under fire. However. These ships are ment to be deployed into any sort of direct combat, and would also have the cover of the missile defense of the Chinese PLA Navy. These ships would be deployed after the bulk of any resistance was taken care of.

  • South Korean fighter jet accidentally drops bombs on South Korean town.

    South Korean fighter jet accidentally drops bombs on South Korean town.

    By. Scott Jackson

    03/06/2025

    At 10:04am local time, Thursday, during a training exercise, a South Korean fighter jet, a KIA KF-16 dropped 8 bombs on the town of Pocheon in South Korea, near the border with North Korea.

    Some of the damage shown as well as a quick snap of the aftermath of the explosion.

    While only one of the bombs is thought to explode the damage destroyed a church and several other buildings. Thankfully although a reported 7 that were injured, some in critical condition and were hospitalized, there were no fatalities. All injured remained conscious, many involved had bone fractures and breaks and one man caught shrapnel in his neck while driving.

    A South Korean Air Force official said ” Our KF-16, abnormally dropped 8 shells of MK-82 bombs, it landed outside of firing range.” The Air Force continued that they would be investigating the incident and apologized for the damage cause.

    Korean KF-16 the licensed South Korean version of the F-16.
    MK-82

    Rumors were pretty heavy across social media last night, most people were trying to push a narrative that the U.S. accidentally bombed a South Korean town which isn’t true. The U.S. and South Korea havent trained together yet since the new presidential administration and will be conducting their first drills on March 10-20 as reported several days ago by AP. Ever since twitter did away with the old way it used to do verifications, you very often will see supposedly verified blue check mark accounts, lying for clicks. Just something to be aware of.