Watch South Korea's Homemade Tank Strut Its Stuff
A new drone-captured video on YouTube shows off the South Korea's new main battle tank, offering spectacular aerial views of the K-2 "Black Panther" in the field, complete with firing smoke dischargers and wading a river.
The K-2 is South Korea's first locally designed and produced tank. Although development was completed in 2007, problems with the transmission and engine delayed production. The problem was temporarily solved by sourcing German power packs for the first 100 vehicles, to be replaced with a Korean-made power pack for subsequent production models. The first K-2s entered service in 2014 Roughly four hundred tanks will be built, replacing South Korea's obsolete M48 Patton tanks.
The K-2 is roughly comparable to the French LeClerc and the American M1 Abrams. It has the same German-designed 120-millimeter main gun as the Abrams, but with a longer barrel to boost projectile velocity. An automatic loader replaces a human loader, reducing the crew to three. It reportedly can feed the gun one round every three seconds. The K-2 has a radar autotracker, allowing the main gun to lock onto and follow a moving enemy tank or low-flying aircraft.
Another standout capability of the K-2 lies in the Korean Standoff Top Attack Munition (KSTAM) munition. KSTAM is fired from the main gun at long range and, like artillery, can attack targets beyond the line of sight. After it's shot into a target area, KSTAM deploys a parachute and turns on its sensor package, including a millimetric wave radar and infra-red sensor. Once it detects a target, it fires an explosively forged penetrator into the enemy's thin top armor. A weapon system like KSTAM is particularly useful in South Korea's mountainous terrain.
The K-2 is smaller than many tanks, weighing a trim 55 tons. It has a peppy horsepower to weight (ton) ratio of 27.2, approximately 20 percent better than a late model Abrams tank. The tank's hydropneumatic suspension system can lower its profile by 16 inches, making it less vulnerable to enemy fire.
In wartime, the K-2 would square off against the North Korean People's Army's Ch'ŏnma-ho and Pokpung-ho tanks. Both are upgrades of older Soviet-era tanks and are inferior to the K-2 in every way.
