K2 Black Panther tanks want to be assembled in Egypt

During the Egyptian International Defense Industry Exhibition EDEX-2021, it became known about the possible joint production of the K2 Black Panther main battle tank with South Korea.

It is reported that negotiations are being held on this issue. They discussed the details of a possible contract, in particular the transfer of technology. No other details have been released yet.

K2 manufacturers have recently begun actively promoting their offspring on the international arms markets.

Oman will probably be the first foreign country to purchase these tracked combat vehicles. In total, we are talking about 76 copies.

The Polish Ground Forces were also initially interested in the South Korean development - they were offered a more advanced upgraded version, which still exists in the form of mockups. However, the Americans with their M1A2C (M1A2 SEPv3) do not seem to intend to let any competitors in here.

A K2NO with an Israeli active protection Trophy was created for the Norwegian army, such a sample was shown at the 13th Seoul Aerospace and Defense Exhibition held in October this year. It is expected to undergo comparative tests with the German Leopard 2A7NO.

As for Egypt, after the announced agreements on the release of K9 Thunder self-propelled artillery guns there, many experts expected that the next candidate for a place in the armed forces of this country would already be Black Panther. And, as we can see, they were not mistaken.

There are about 3,850 tanks in the ARE army, of which only 1,100 M1A1 are relatively modern, all the others, such as the T-54/55, T-62, M60A1/A3, have long been obsolete and require replacement.

Given the high cost of K2 (about $ 9 million), technical problems that have not yet been completely overcome, the Egyptians will still have to look for another manufacturer of armored vehicles. Only with the help of several countries there is a chance of a complete renewal of the tank fleet.

Alexey Brusilov