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By Lee Tae-hoon
Korea will delay the production of the K2 Black Panther main battle tank for another half a year in order to carry out field tests in early 2014, according to senior officials of the state-run Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) Tuesday.
“DAPA plans to amend its contract with Hyundai Rotem, the main contractor of the K-2, in March this year to mandate rigorous testing and inspection, including a 3,200-kilometer road test and months of field tests, before giving the green light to production,” a senior DAPA official said.
DAPA originally planned to produce 600 K2 tanks from last year, but postponed this twice, first to 2012 and later to 2013 due to problems in the development of the tank’s “power pack,” consisting of the engine and the transmission.
The procurement agency also decided last year to reduce the production of K2 units to 297 and determine in March this year whether to import a 1,500-horsepower power pack from MTU in Germany or allow a local manufacturer, whose power pack failed to meet the Army’s requirements earlier, to manufacture one.
The official noted that DAPA will ask Hyundai Rotem to suspend production for about six months for further testing upon receiving 15 initial production tanks to be delivered to the Army from December next year.
Noh Dae-lae, head of DAPA, said an Army tank company will evaluate the performance of the 15 K2s for about four to five months prior to giving a final approval for the production of the advanced main battle tanks.
“Delaying production costs money, but I see it as an investment to prevent a future loss,” he said.
Noh said, from this year, DAPA will make extensive field tests mandatory prior to mass producing defense products in line with its effort to ensure zero-defect production.
“Carrying out tests on prototypes alone cannot ensure high quality as they are the ones produced in an ideal environment, whereas production models are often manufactured in a much inferior environment.”
Industry insiders, however, say the deployment of K2s, which will replace the Army’s K1 tanks and its aging M48 Patton tanks, will likely be further delayed possibly beyond 2015 as more problems are bound to be found in testing.
The K2, one of the most advanced main battle tanks in the world, was unveiled in 2007 with the rollout of three prototypes.
The K2 carries a three-person crew supported by an auto-loading system, and a locally-developed 120-millimeter/55-caliber stabilized smoothbore gun.
The fully-digitalized vehicle is equipped with an active protection system against anti-tank guided missiles as well as composite armor and explosive reactive armor to maximize survivability.
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