Ministry of National Defense Republic of Korea

Good teamwork for port damage repair

Korea-U.S. Navy pool their ability for port damage repair.

A combined Korea-U.S. port repair training was held at Jinhae base from April 10-17.

Many soldiers of Jinhae Naval Base, Component Flotilla 5’s Sea Salvage Unit (SSU), Naval Construction Battalion (NCB)’s Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) and Underwater Construction Team (UCT) participated in the training.

The training was performed in the water and on land simultaneously, and focused on improving the combined ability to repair the port damage by assigning several circumstances.

It started with a situation in which a dock on an open-type quay was damaged by an enemy’s attack during the war. The quay is a structure built vertically on the ocean floor, a kind of wall with appurtenances that are long enough for a vessel to come alongside the quay. It needs a high level of underwater strength as well as construction technology due to the nature of the installation where a pole should be fixed in the ocean floor.

One SSU company and one UCT had passed four-step training consisting of underwater precision search,

elimination of obstacles, evaluation of port damage and its repair for concrete placement paths.

On land, the repair training for “dock on gravity type quay” was proceeded. It is designed to endure water pressure by the wall weight and friction force.

Mobile Construction Battalion of Jinhae base and the U.S. Navy NMCB have made themselves masters of arranging the sea-bed, flattening broken stones and constructing structure for damage repair, using equipment and materials including a large crane.

The Korea and U.S. navies improved their combined military engineering operation ability through this practical training and strengthened their friendship formed with a solid alliance.

By Byeong-No, Yun < trylover@dema.mil.kr >
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