Sin In Kyun's May 14 podcast on youtube reports on US naval supply ship positions throughout the Pacific region with a focus on northeast Asia. He suggests that the level of prepositioned equipment, supplies and ammunition is at a historically high level and is a signal to North Korea that the US is ready to carry out military operations should the North be unwise enough to engage in more provocative missile launches. He claims there are enough supply vessels to arm and support three armored brigades and one division for fifteen days. He also identifies ammunition supply for air forces.
Shin's report is the result of his collection effort from his network of contacts according to what he said. He said the deployment of naval support ships attained the level of the crisis in 2017. He made some comment to the effect that if he could collect this much information about the naval posture, then certainly a more resourceful North Korean network would certainly be better informed and understand the current high level of readiness of US forces.
Shin contends that currently there are 13 ships potentially available to support military operations in the Korean theater. One could make a lower estimate. Shin argues that there was no exercise activity to warrant the positioning of these ships in the areas he has plotted, but there actually has been an exercise in Philippines recently. (12-day-long Balikatan, an annual military exercise between American and Filipino troops ended April 11). Also some of these 13 ships are rather remote from the Korean peninsula such as one reported in the Singapore area, and two more in the vicinity of Guam, with another charter merchant vessel still in port in California as of the time of his report. So that takes his reports of thirteen vessels as being an unusual indicator down to nine, deployed in the direct vicinity of either South Korea or Japan. Shin also reports on some air operations at Yokota airbase in Japan as being unusual VIP transport. He never misses an opportunity to mention continuing Osprey operations there.
Because Shin tends to be overzealous and exaggerates in his approach to defense analysis, perhaps his report should be disregarded. Nevertheless, the detail of a report in itself may warrant a look, although perhaps lending it a credibility it might not deserve. Obviously, it's a difficult subject matter due to classification and operational security concerns. This particular youtube podcast of his Daily Defense program has gained almost 800,000 views at this point.
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