S. Korea to make decision on key part of new battle tank

SEOUL (Yonhap) - South Korea's weapons procurement agency is due to hold a meeting on Wednesday to decide whether to import a key part of its new battle tank under development or use a domestically built part, a decision that could affect hundreds of local defense contractors, officials said.
South Korea had originally planned to start mass production of the K2 "Black Panther" tank this year to replace the Army's aging K1 and the U.S.-built M48 tanks. But, the plan hit a snag in 2009 because of a series of technical problems involving an engine and transmission of the new tank.
Production of the K2 tank has been suspended since then as the homegrown engine and transmission, known as a "power pack," was found to be defective.
Over the past year, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) allowed local contractors to work on fixing the defective part. However, the homegrown part was still found to be sub-standard, DAPA officials said.
"After evaluating the performance of the power pack, it is still found to be sub-standard," a DAPA official said on the condition of anonymity, raising the prospect that South Korea would import the part.
At the Wednesday meeting, the DAPA will decide on whether to import the part from Germany and deploy the new tank by 2012 or give more time to local contractors to improve the defective part.
If the DAPA allows local contractors to further repair the part, a deployment of the new tank will be delayed until 2014, officials said.
Modeled after the German-developed MTU-890, the K2 power pack is composed of a 1,500-horsepower diesel engine and transmission. Doosan Infracore and S&T Dynamics are the two main developers of the homegrown power pack.
The new tank features an auto-loaded 120mm cannon, can reach speeds of up to 70 kilometers per hour, and can cross rivers as deep as 4.1 meters using a snorkel, according to the DAPA.