North Korea Unveils All New Main Battle Tank: What To Expect From The Latest Korean Armour

During a major military parade held on October 10th, marking 75 years in power for the ruling Korean Workers’ Party, North Korea unveiled a number of new weapons systems ranging from intercontinental range ballistic missiles to mobile radar systems designed for air defence. One of the most notable additions to the Korean inventory was a newly introduced class of man battle tank, which differs significantly from prior designs and has a new much more angular turret and new active protection systems. North Korea has been manufacturing tanks for well over 40 years, the first being the Chonma Ho platform which was closely based on the Soviet T-62 design, but evolved to field far superior capabilities. The tank benefited from new technologies reverse engineered from the Soviet T-72 designs, and would come to integrate modern laser rangefinders, ‘boom shields,’ surface to air missiles, and advanced explosive reactive armour. Smoke launchers, thermal sleeves for the main gun, armour track skirts, composite armour, a ballistics computer and a more advanced integrated fire control suite also came as later additions - alongside a new more powerful 750hp engine and superior can stabilisation systems, placing it technologically on a peer level with late Cold War era designs. The latest set of upgrades included thermal imagers, a new fire control system, new rubber plate fitted composite armour, an elongated chassis, new surface to air missiles, a more powerful 125mm 2A46 smoothbore cannon (replacing the original 115mm cannon), a spent shell ejection system and an autoloader. These have served to considerably increase the tank’s firepower as well as its survivability and the situational awareness of its crews. 

Although the Chonma Ho evolved into a sophisticated design, it has not featured in Korean military parades for some years, having been eclipsed by the Pokpung Ho which was a much more sophisticated and unique design. Initial variants of the new tank benefitted from access to the most advanced Soviet armoured warfare technologies, which North Korea gained access to by purchasing a small number of T-80 tanks in the early 1980s for study. The tank was further optimised for operations from the country’s mountainous terrain, and is thought to have benefited from lessons learned from testing the Chonma Ho in combat after the older tank went up against modern Soviet armour during the Iran-Iraq War. The Pokpung Ho uses advanced composite armour, a powerful 1,500 hp engine, up to two surface to air missile launchers, two anti armour ATGM launchers, twin grenade launchers, a heavy KPV anti-aircraft machine gun, a coaxial machine gun and four smoke grenade launchers. Its 2A46 125 mm smoothbore gun is the same as that of the Russian T-90 battle tank. The Pokpung Ho also boasts limited night fighting capabilities including infrared sensors, a laser rangefinder and a searchlight. Additional reactive armour and munition types have been added over time to improve the survivability of the Pokpung Ho.

Very little information is available about North Korea’s newest tank, but the fact that it replaced the already formidable Pokpung Ho platform during the latest military parade indicate that the design is likely very formidable. The tank is likely to use many of the same technologies as later variants of the Pokpung Ho, but on a more formidable chassis which has greater potential to incorporate upgrades in future. There is also a significant possibility that the new tank benefits from technologies shared by either neighbouring China or Russia, much as has been widely speculated of the new KN-23 tactical ballistic missile, although there is little evidence beyond speculation to prove this. Based on the precedents set by the Pokpung Ho and Chonma Ho programs, North Korea’s new tank is likely to also be heavily optimised for mountain warfare, providing an advantage for wars on the Korean Peninsula over tank designs such as thee American M1 or South Korean K2 which are designed for much flatter terrain. Unveiling of the new tank is a likely indicator that the Pokpung Ho its already out of production, and will likely be phased out of more and more frontline units much as the Chonma Ho was from the early 2000s.