In North Korea, they again showed a tank of their own production, which experts previously considered a kind of hybrid of the Russian T-14 Armata tank and the American M1 Abrams. A new picture of the combat vehicle, published by the Central Telegraph Agency (KCNA) of the DPRK, was shown by the South Korean Yonhap news agency.
The photo that appeared was taken during the opening of the exhibition of the development of state defense "Self-Defense - 2021", dedicated to the 76th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party of Korea (CPC). The ceremony took place on October 11 in Pyongyang.
In the published footage, you can see the tank, which is installed on the left side of the scene. One of the pictures on its background also shows the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, who made a speech at the opening of the exhibition, and then examined the weapons presented at it.
For the first time, North Korea demonstrated its new main battle tank in 2020 at a military parade on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the TPK. The North Korean side did not publish any specific information about the technical characteristics of the new model, but Western experts said that the DPRK tank resembles several combat vehicles of other countries at once.
Thus, The National Interest wrote that the chassis design of the North Korean tank strongly resembles the Russian Armata, as well as partly the Chinese VT-4, also known as MBT-3000. In addition, experts noted that the tower of the car from the DPRK is designed similarly to the tower of the American M1A2 Abrams. At the same time, the protection installed on the North Korean model has a certain similarity with the Afganit active protection complex, which ARMATA is equipped with.
Varvara Koshechkina