SEOUL, August 31. /TASS/. Maneuver corps of South Korea’s Army have conducted large-scale drills involving roughly 550 tracked vehicles, including tanks and self-propelled howitzers, as well as more than 3,000 troops, Yonhap reported on Thursday.

The four-day maneuvers which kicked off on Monday coincided with the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise. During the drills, K2 tanks and K9 howitzers of a maneuver division traveled a distance of about 100 kilometers from a base in Hongcheon County to Gapeyong County.

According to the news agency, a mechanized infantry division mobilized its assets on Wednesday to travel some 110 kilometers between its headquarters in Gapeyong and Cheorwon. The unit staged live-fire combat training involving K1A2 tanks and K21 armored vehicles, Yonhap said. K9 howitzer crews held drills at another training ground. An engineer brigade of the Army and a US infantry division also held a joint river-crossing exercise in Cheorwon County.

The combined Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise which began on August 21 will end later today. On Wednesday, the Korean Air Force and the United States conducted a joint exercise mobilizing at least one US B-1B strategic bomber over the Korean Peninsula in the wake of the DPRK’s failed attempt to launch a reconnaissance satellite. In response, North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan.