The Department of procurement of the Ministry of defense of South Korea (Defense Acquisition Program Administration - DAPA) decided to equip the third batch of 50 main tanks of South Korean production K2 Black Panther German transmission, which is part of the power plant of the tank with the engine of national production, writes Brian Kim in an article forDefense News.
South Korean K2 Black Panther tanks fire live rounds during an exercise on February 11, 2015 in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea (C) Chung Sung-Jun
This decision dealt a blow to the 15-year program of replacing the German Renk transmission with a system of national production, which, as representatives of South Korean defense enterprises expected, would prepare the ground for the export of the tank.
"By 2023, about 50 units of K2 tanks will be built, which will require an investment of 2.83 trillion won [about $ 2.56 billion]," DAPA said in a statement.
It is noted that the new products will be equipped with a "hybrid power plant" consisting of a Renk transmission and an engine developed by the South Korean company Doosan Infracore, since the South Korean automatic transmission developed by S & T Dynamics did not withstand resource tests.
History of delays
The failure to develop the transmission also led to delays in the delivery of the tank to the South Korean army.
The K2 Black Panther tank was developed jointly by the South Korean defense development Agency (Agency for Defense Development - ADD) and Hyundai Rotem to replace the M48 Patton tanks and earlier models of the K1 tanks that had been in service since the 1980s. Prototypes were presented in 2007.
Mass production of the first 100 K2 units was approved in 2011, and delivery to the troops was planned for the following year, but was delayed due to a faulty engine and lack of progress in the development of the transmission. The government then decided to use a German-made power plant for the first batch, consisting of an MTU 883 diesel engine and a Renk transmission.
The tanks entered service in 2014, and in the same year, South Korean developers announced that they had managed to create a 1,500-horsepower power plant that could be installed on a second series of 100 tanks. However, the deployment of the second series also faced delays, as the transmission produced by S & T Dynamics repeatedly failed to confirm its reliability and resource indicators in accordance with the standards that the system should work flawlessly for 320 hours. The second series of K2 tanks was delivered in 2019.
Export potential
The fate of the power plant of national production is the main problem for potential foreign customers of the tank, including Turkey.
In 2008, Hyundai Rotem signed a $ 540 million contract with the Turkish company Otokar to transfer technology and help design the K2 tank. This technology was used in the production of Turkey's main tank, called the Altay. Defense News recently learned that Turkish officials were in talks with Hyundai Rotem to save its delayed program.
It is also reported that Poland has shown interest in developing its own main tank in cooperation with Hyundai Rotem using Black Panther tank technologies.
Black Panther is armed with a 120 mm L55 smoothbore gun developed by the South Korean company Hyundai WIA. It is also equipped with a fire control system capable of detecting and tracking targets up to 9.8 km away using a thermal imaging camera. The tank can reach speeds of up to 70 km / h on the road surface and maintain speeds of up to 52 km / h in off-road conditions. It can also overcome 60-degree inclines and vertical obstacles up to 1.8 m high.
From the bmpd recall that K2 tank was developed by the South Korean unification Hyundai Rotem (part of the Hyundai Motor Group) and ADD in 1995, however, the program was significantly delayed due to difficulties with the fine-tuning of the tank and the decision to install diesel engine and transmission of the national production (companies Doosan Infracore and S & T Dynamics, respectively) instead of German on the original draft. The creation and development of the South Korean engine and transmission was accompanied and continues to be accompanied by problems.
Hyundai Rotem manufactured 15 pre-production HK2 tanks at its Changwon facility in 2012-2014, and then, in less than one year by the end of November 2015, successfully implemented a contract signed on December 29, 2014 with DAPA worth 901.5 billion won ($820 million) for the supply of the first 100 K2 production tanks to the South Korean army. All these tanks were equipped with imported German engine and transmission compartments as part of the MTU MT883 diesel engine and Renk automatic transmission.
The second series of K2 tanks in 106 units, ordered by DAPA as an option to the contract dated December 29, 2014, was to receive engine and transmission departments of completely own South Korean design and production, including a new Doosan Infracore DV27K diesel engine with a capacity of 1500 HP and an EST15K automatic transmission from the South Korean company S & T Dynamics.
Hyundai Rotem started manufacturing the second series of K2 tanks at the end of 2015, having built several dozen cars by 2017, and delivery of all 106 cars was expected during 2017, after which it was planned to order another series of 100 cars. However, during testing, the EST15K automatic transmission developed by S & T Dynamics could not confirm the reliability and resource characteristics. As a result, the delivery of these transmissions for the K2 tanks of the second series was not started, and DAPA suspended production of these tanks and decided to convert all K2 tanks of the second series to the German Renk transmission, and, accordingly, the deadline for their delivery was shifted to 2019-2020. At the beginning of 2019, an experienced modified K2 tank with a combination of the South Korean Doosan Infracore DV27K diesel engine and Renk transmission successfully completed tests (mileage was 3,200 km). Delivery of all 106 K2 tanks of the second series with the German transmission was made in the end only in 2019.
Now it has become known that ongoing problems with the EST15K transmission developed by S & T Dynamics led to the decision to produce 50 K2 tanks of the third series in a version similar to the second series - with a combination of the South Korean Doosan Infracore DV27K diesel engine and the German Renk transmission.