South Korea’s K2 Battle Tank Continues to Have Problems
It is amazing how long it has been taking for the Koreans to figure out how to domestically produce one of their key defense systems:
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South Korea’s arms acquisition agency has decided to equip third batch of K2 Black Panther main battle tanks with a German transmission system, a part of the tank’s power pack that includes a locally developed engine.
The decision is a blow to a 15-yearlong effort to replace the German RENK transmission system with an indigenous one, which local industry expected would pave the way for exporting the tank. (…….)
The failure in local transmission development has also caused setbacks for the tank’s deployment in the South Korean Army.
The Black Panther was co-developed by the state-run Agency for Defense Development and Hyundai Rotem, a defense business arm of Hyundai Motor, to replace M48 Patton tanks and earlier models of K1 tanks that have been service since the 1980s. Prototypes were unveiled in 2007.
Mass production of the first 100 units was approved in 2011, with deployment scheduled for the following year, but the effort was delayed over a faulty engine and a lack of progress on a locally produced transmission. The government then decided to use the German-made power pack consisting of the MTU 883 diesel engine and RENK transmission system for the first batch.
The tanks entered service in 2014, and in that same year, local developers announced they succeeded in developing a 1,500-horsepower power pack that could be installed on the second batch of 100 tanks. However, the deployment of the second batch also faced delays, as the S&T Dynamics-made transmission system repeatedly failed to prove its reliability and durability under transmission production standards, which require a system to run without issue for 320 hours. The second batch of K2s were eventually delivered in 2019.
Defense News
You can read more at the link, but ROK Heads may remember that South Korea has been trying to export the K2 to Turkey. Due to the various delays, Turkey decided to instead conduct a technology transfer with South Korea to develop their own tank.
I don’t know the true reasons behind the S&T Dynamics-made transmission failure to meet standards–or the reasoning behind those standards. That makes all the difference here. What war are they planning to fight?
The Germans themselves had numerous problems with reliability and spare parts on their tanks during WW2. Essentially, not all tanks of a given model could swap parts due to uncontrolled “improvements”. And each tank took too long to manufacture.
The Soviets built their tanks to lower standards. They had carefully studied battlefield data and realized that the average lifespan of a tank on the Eastern Front was less than six months. In combat, tank lifespan was about 14 hours. The tanks were mass-produced and, as with the under-armored and under-gunned US Shermans in Western Europe, won by overwhelming numbers.
This article goes over some of the reasons:
www historynet com/profiles-cold-steel-making-tanks.htm
German tank production also suffered from sabotage by the slave labor they used…similiar to Korea tank production suffers from the bribery and corruption endemic in its government.
Sounds like corruption and politics to me. Reliable 1500 HP Diesel Engines with Transmissions have been around for years.
More apple boxes in failure than succeeding.
Maybe South Korea WANTS the tanks to fail. No problem if the North invades.
I find it telling that when they really wanted the first batch in production, they were able to procure off the shelf power packs with no problem.
“It is amazing how long it has been taking for the Koreans to figure out how to domestically produce one of their key defense systems:”
Very few countries in world has the ability to produce their own domestic powerpack. The problem isn’t that Koreans haven’t figure out, the problem is the transmission they wanted is set in higher bar which S&T dynamics transmission couldn’t pass in their 3rd try. The powerback they currently using is a hybrid one (local engine with German transmission). It will take time for them to produce a transmission that can beat the RENK one they currently using.
Militaryguy is a smart guy. It’s not that they haven’t been able to develop the powerpack. It’s just that the transmission that they developed couldn’t pass the strenuous quality test required. It’s only a matter of time before they figure it out.