XK2 - Development

Development

In 1995, the Korean Agency for Defense Development (Hangul: 국방과학연구소) was given the task of developing a modern armored fighting vehicle based upon state-of-the-art domestic technologies. It was intended for this development program to further modernize the Republic of Korea Army; despite the superior capability of existing K1 and K1A1 designs versus existing North Korean tanks; most of which are aging T-55s and Type 59s. Emphasis upon indigenous technologies would also allow the proposed vehicle to enter the export market without licensing issues.

Early design variants included a version with an unmanned turret, which was later scrapped in favor of manned turret designs. It was also planned for the vehicle to be equipped with Rheinmetall's experimental 140 mm smoothbore gun, though this had to be abandoned when Rheinmetall ceased development upon the rationale that its current weapon, the 120 mm/L55 would be more than adequate to counter prospective armored threats for the foreseeable future. The K2 was subsequently reconfigured for the 120 mm/L55, though it is capable of mounting the 140 mm gun with minimum modifications should the need arise.

The design became production-ready in 2006, following 11 years in development and a research budget expenditure of approximately US$230 million, and entered production phase on March 2, 2007 in Changwon, South Korea.

It was originally planned for the K2 to feature a domestically-designed powerpack, based upon the German-designed MTU-890, comprising a Doosan Infracore Corporation 1,500 horsepower (1,100 kW) 12-cylinder diesel engine and a S&T Dynamics transmission. However, this encountered recurrent technical problems in testing, leading to a delay in operational deployment of the K2.

In March, 2011, South Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) announced that mass production of the K2, which the Army was expecting to deploy in 2012, will not happen until 2013 due to problems concerning its engine and transmission. In April 2012 DAPA announced that due to ongoing issues with the reliability and durability of the domestically-produced powerpack, the first 100 production K2s would use a German engine and transmission and that service entry would be delayed until March 2014. .