From 1990 to very recently, the ROK (Republic of Korea; or South Korea) army had a tendency to reduce the presence of 7.62mm NATO light or medium machine guns. From the 1970s to 1990, the South Korea military used M60 GPMGs as their ‘almost universal’ machine gun; first supplied from the U.S. as military support when the ROK military dispatched a considerable number of troops to Vietnam and then manufactured under license by Daewoo Precision Industry, Co. (today’s S&T Motive). It was used everywhere machine guns were used: infantry, vehicle mounted, helicopter mounted, etc. Since the ROK military was heavily influenced under U.S. doctrine, it was quite natural and that influence led to the development of the K3 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), since the U.S. Army used the M249 SAW from the 1980s. The K3 is the ‘Koreanized’ version of the famous Minimi, and the role of K3 in ROK Army/Marine Corps was initially quite similar to that of the M249 in U.S. military.