Interesting, heard Poland was going to collaborate somewhat with South Korea on this
Thats a good question because it hasn´t been identified by name. There are other materials regarding this tank. What I see is a modified K2 hull with an unmanned turret (130mm). Its either a quick commercial competitor to the likes of KF-51 or a lower risk alternative to the development of a next generation fully electric tank based on hydrogen cells (the concept thats been presented in all recent expos). It could also be an interim solution until the fully electric tank is viable, like Leopard ARC 3.0 or Leclerc Evolution are in regards to MGCS.
More stuff related to this K2 with unmanned turret (for the moment, I would like to call it “K2.5” EDIT: official designation is K2A1):
1 Like
All I know about Poland’s collab at the moment is that they want to license produce a very own variant; the K2PL with one additional wheel per track, hard kill APS, RCWS and some other stuff. Though we have to wait n see how the final Product looks like.
Maybe someone else knows more, I am not really following the project at the moment, rather K2EX and (possible) customers in SEA region.
1 Like
Couldn’t that possibly be the K2PIP?
No, K2PIP will be very similar to OG K2 in terms of general design. Main changes would be APS and other new systems (such as the “Situational Awareness System”, kinda analogue to Israel´s Iron Vision). K2PIP will be a “Koreanized” version of K2PL.
2 Likes
The whole thing is being delayed basically due to the events going on in South Korea, some other sources from my side claim they ditched the 7 roadwheel area of ideas. We are uncertain of the exact future of this tank, but apparentally we are going to start seeing it take shape this year which excites me.
AFAIK the 7 wheel chassis was abandoned. It was proposed initially as a pitch for Middle East countries. But since its a major change to engineering, I guess it wasn´t worth it. In practice K2PL is cofunding K2PIP.
2 Likes
Just searching through various Korean blogs I found that exta, add on armor modules are considered for K2PL/K2PIP. However since it worsens the mobility characteristics of the tank, the Koreans haven´t decided yet what to do about it.
Last thing I could dig up today:
Firstly, its confirmed that the “K3” designation is indeed official and refers to the PL-01 looking concept Hyundai-Rotem have been displaying recently. Secondly, the K2 with unmanned turret is indeed a separate program and scheduled for service as an interim model, will be designated "K2A1"
So, South Korea has a pretty clear development program for tanks in the near future (K2—K2PIP—K2A1—K3).
Source: 서로 서로 자료로 담가요 : 네이버 블로그
2 Likes
I’ll be honest the ww2 portion should be cut entirely to avoid all the copy paste and also the weird korea fighting alongside ww2 vehicles. It’s mostly copy paste anyway. Otherwise a great suggestion.
That’s cold war. Also no. From a historical standpoint, the M24 and other vehicles are some of the first. It makes no sense to just remove it cause “oh it’s copy and paste, that’s uh… bad”. There are a lot of historical connotations. If you did that.
5 Likes
What? Rank 3 to 4 are still mostly predominated by ww2 vehicles. It seems very needless. Feel free to disagree.
Once again those vehicles were given to Korea during the Korean War. It’s a similar premise to Japan, and Germany during the early Cold War era. They paid and were given.
5 Likes
1000 votes! 🎉🎉
Let’s keep this going, hopefully we can see Korea next year!
9 Likes
Nice, Gaijin should definitely not pass on this big opportunity especially with the big support it has.
Good work @ChieftainWarrior
4 Likes
Shoutout to David_M543 for the free advertising!
4 Likes
Oh, awesome!
If he sees this, thank you!
1 Like
i want funny low tier vehicles K
Would you mind mentioning in your post #1 that all of the T-80s (35 units) in the SK are only T-80Us, and that the claim that the SK have 2 units of T-80UKs is misinformation? He seems very confused by the comments with different claims, which is worth mentioning considering that this rumor is so widespread that it’s even listed as fact on Wikipedia.
Search result in Daily Defense
국방일보(Daily Defense) is a daily newspaper published by the 국방홍보원(Defense Media Agency).
Unlike “80U”, there are 0 results for “80UK”. The Defense Media Agency is an agency of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Korea.
Minutes in the National Assembly
And on a more obvious evidence, there are documents of the minutes in the South Korean National Assembly.
Source:
- 234th National Assembly’s audit of state affairs, National Defense Committee (Appendix 1) page 29
- 234th National Assembly’s audit of state affairs, Legislation and Judiciary Committee (Appendix 1) page 7
2 Likes
Sure, thanks for the details!
Will edit that when I edit the post for a few other things.
