Missile defense system in Seoul to get boost

By Jun Ji-hye

The military has begun a project to upgrade the Patriot air defense system to better protect Seoul and its surrounding area from threats from North Korea’s short-range ballistic missiles, officials said Tuesday.

The goal of the project is to upgrade the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC) 2 system deployed at units in the capital and its surrounding area to the PAC-3 version by 2022.

The move comes amid concerns that Seoul will be left out of the coverage range of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery to be set up in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province next year.

The metropolitan area is home to more than 40 percent of the nation’s 51.6 million people and major areas include the capital city, the western port city of Incheon and Gyeonggi Province.

As the first step, the military is currently working on upgrading the PAC-2 system deployed at a unit in Gangwon Province to the PAC-3 version.

“Once the upgrade in Gangwon Province is completed in 2018, the military will move the upgraded system to a unit in the Seoul metropolitan area,” said a military official, asking not to be named. “Then, the old system will be moved to a unit in Gangwon Province.”

The official noted that the upgraded version will be moved to the Seoul metropolitan area after the upgrade work is done in the non-Seoul metropolitan area in order to minimize a possible vacuum of the nation’s military strength.

The combat-proven PAC-3 missile is a high velocity “hit-to-kill” interceptor that destroys incoming ballistic and cruise missiles, and hostile aircraft by direct impact. The PAC-2 uses a blast-fragmentation proximity warhead that sends debris from an exploded missile into the target.

When the Ministry of National Defense announced on July 8 that Seoul and Washington will deploy a THAAD unit in Seongju, the ministry said it will speed up upgrading the PAC low-altitude missile defense system as the capital area is beyond the THAAD’s coverage range.

The THAAD interceptor has an effective range of 200 kilometers, while Seongju is located 210 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

“If the North fires a Scud missile toward Seoul, the PAC system is more appropriate for protecting the capital as the missile’s flight altitude would be low, and the flight time would be short,” said Yoo Jeh-seung deputy minister for policy at the defense ministry.

Defense Minister Han Min-koo said on July 10 that the THAAD battery will provide a layered defensive shield along with the PAC system.

THAAD is capable of intercepting incoming missiles at high altitudes of up to 150 kilometers, while the PAC-3 system is capable of shooting them down at low altitudes of 30 kilometers, according to officials.