South Korea to upgrade K2 tanks against growing North Korean drone threat

The South Korean Army will strengthen the drone defenses on its K2 main battle tanks under an overhaul approved Tuesday by a government defense procurement committee.

The upgrade comes as a countermeasure to North Korea's mass production of suicide drones designed to hit tanks like the K2, a buildup ordered by leader Kim Jong-un.

The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) plans to carry out the project from 2028 through 2046 at a total cost of 3.4 trillion won ($2.4 billion). The enhancement will also include active protection systems, jammers against drones and improvised explosive devices and remote-controlled weapon stations to strengthen the tanks' ability to respond to future battlefield threats.

"The project is intended to improve the K2 tank's survivability and combat capability against increasingly advanced enemy anti-tank threats," DAPA said.

The Army operates several hundred K2s, all of which are due for the upgrade. The Army will focus on better close-range firepower and counterdrone systems to defend against suicide drone attacks.

Military planners also shaped the upgrade around lessons from the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian first-person-view suicide drones and U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems have exposed the vulnerability of Russian armored forces, including T-72 main battle tanks. Military observers in South Korea say those losses blunted Russia's early ground advances and contributed to the war's prolonged course.

North Korean troops sent to Russia are likely to have absorbed the same battlefield lessons firsthand, military observers say.

Kim has repeatedly pushed his military to expand its drone arsenal. He visited the Drone Institute of the Academy of Defense Sciences on Aug. 24, 2024, and state media images from the test that day showed a suicide drone resembling Russia's Lancet loitering munition striking the turret of a mock tank that appeared to be modeled on the K2.

"It is necessary to develop and produce more suicide drones of various types to be used in tactical infantry and special operation units, as well as strategic reconnaissance and multipurpose attack drones," Kim said, according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

The defense procurement committee also approved a separate program to develop the Haeseong-II, a longer-range domestically produced ship-to-ship guided missile. South Korea plans to invest 1.63 trillion won from next year through 2039.

The South Korean Navy's current Haeseong anti-ship missile has a range of roughly 150 to 180 kilometers (93 to 112 miles). The new weapon is intended to reach into the mid-300-kilometer range. South Korean warships would be able to engage enemy vessels from much farther away, and their effective strike radius would expand.

North Korea has also accelerated a naval buildup under Kim through new destroyer construction and ship-to-ship missile tests. The new missile would sharpen the Navy's precision strike capability at long range as that buildup continues.

The Navy expects to deploy the missile on its KDX-III Aegis destroyers or on the KDDX, its next-generation domestically designed destroyer.

BY LEE YU-JUNG [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]