S&T Motiv K12 is a 7.62×51mm NATO machine gun manufactured by S&T Daewoo to replace M60 machine gun for Republic of Korea Armed Forces. The XK12 was first shown to the public in 2009, during the Seoul ADEX International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition. History During the Vietnam War, considerable numbers of South Korean military personnel were deployed to the country in support of the United States military. The U.S. supplied South Korean troops with M60 machine guns, which were quickly adopted and then manufactured under license by Daewoo Precision Industry (now S&T Motiv). From 1970 to 1990, the M60 was South Korea's universal machine gun, being used by infantry and mounted on vehicles and helicopters. Because the Republic of Korea armed forces was heavily influenced by American military doctrine, when the U.S. Army adopted the M249 squad automatic weapon in the 1980s, the South Korean Army and Marine Corps followed suit and introduced the K3 light machine gun, a "Koreanized" version of the FN Minimi, for squad use. During the 2000s when aging M60s first needed replacement, platoon-level machine guns were replaced by K3s which removed the medium machine gun from infantry, a departure from U.S. doctrine which uses medium machine guns for platoon-level fire support. The M60 remained in use on vehicles and aircraft, but even some Korean-made armored vehicles were armed only with K3s. Since the K3 was in production while M60 assembly lines had long been closed, it seemed obvious to the ROK military to replace the M60 with it. However, due to the short range and limited power of the 5.56 NATO round, South Korean tanks, armored cars, and helicopters retained their M60 variants firing 7.62 NATO ammunition. Most M60s were still working relatively well and the military did not want to spend money to find a replacement machine gun, choosing to use their budget to focus on more expensive and high-value assets. The search for a new medium machine gun finally gathered momentum in 2006 when the ROK Army began the development of the Korean Utility Helicopter, a domestic medium utility helicopter. The new helicopter created a requirement for new machine guns for them, as both the UH-1H Hueys and the M60s they mounted remained from the Vietnam War. Army leaders initially wanted to buy from foreign vendors, especially the FN Herstal M240H, but others in the Army and S&T Motiv used the opportunity to