North Korea first announced its next-generation main battle tank design in October 2020, sparking widespread speculation and raising significant questions about its future capabilities and its impact on the future combat potential of the country's armed force, the Korean People's Army. However, new details about the vehicle provide insight into the state of North Korea's defense sector and answer many of the most important questions about the vehicle. One particularly salient question answered during a recent state broadcast was the name of the tank, which was previously known in the West as the M2020 based on its year of release. The United States has long used “M” to represent its own armored vehicles. For example, the M1 Abrams represents the only tank category it currently uses, and the M48 represents the main tank in service since 1953 during the early Cold War.
The Chonma 2 is the third tank produced in the country, following the original Chonma tank from the 1980s (closely based on the Soviet T-62) and the Chonma-215/216 tank that entered service in the early 2000s. Russian T-72/90 influenced indigenous design. The Chonma-215 and Chonma-216 are also known as “Songgun” – named after the “military first” policy in the 1990s when the tank was finally developed. Chonma means Pegasus and is therefore a more general name not associated with a specific time period.
Regarding the firepower of the Chonma 2, the tank has been confirmed to be able to use three different types of ammunition, namely armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot rounds (APFSDS), high-explosive anti-tank rounds (HEAT) and high-explosive fragmentation rounds. Of particular note is the APFSDS round used, a modern design with an excellent aspect ratio indicating very high penetration capabilities. The longer length indicates a structurally more efficient sabot design, allowing it to defeat greater line-of-sight armor depths. It is understood that the tank was previously equipped with secondary weapons of the Bulsae-3 anti-tank missile, which is a derivative of the Russian “Cornet” missile and has advanced penetration capabilities. The Kornet has proven highly effective against most modern tank classes widely used by Western armies, including the British Challenger 2, German Leopard 2 and American M1 Abrams.
Perhaps the most unusual feature of the new tank is that it uses a manual loader and a crew of four, whereas modern Russian, Chinese and Korean tanks all use automatic loaders and a crew of three. Western tanks are expected to catch up with this trend with their next-generation armour, making North Korea the only country to use Soviet artillery-caliber vehicles without employing autoloaders. One benefit of this, though, is that the Chonma 2's crew of four will be able to provide more maintenance assistance, and the country's particularly large manpower means there won't be the tank crew shortages faced by other countries.
A particularly striking feature of the new tank is the integration of thermal sights for the gunner and commander. While most tanks do not have thermal sights, many are equipped with a set of them to reduce costs. The type of sights installed remains uncertain, as they have characteristics that clearly distinguish them from those deployed by other countries. Therefore, they may be outdated first-generation scopes, such as those on the Challenger 2, or modern third-generation scopes, such as those on the T-90M. Notably, the fire control system also includes a screen with multiple buttons that appear to be a battle management system with advanced positioning capabilities – something few tank classes in the world can boast. The tank's engine looks very similar to the German MT883 of the Leopard 2 tank, but has some notable differences, such as the turbocharger and intercooler. Since the German tank class has been widely exported, the likelihood that North Korea's defense sector will acquire the design remains high. If the Chonma 2's engine has similar performance, it is much lighter than the Leopard 2, allowing for a higher level of maneuverability. Other confirmed features of the tank include a hard-kill active protection system and explosive reactive armor.
Throughout the country's history, North Korean tanks have lagged far behind leading foreign tanks in performance, and North Korea purchased the T-62-based Tianma tank because the Soviet Union was producing more capable tanks such as the T-80U. The Songun tank of the 2000s closed the performance gap somewhat, although its lack of a thermal sight was a particularly big drawback and still lagged behind the top Soviet tank, the T-80UK. Nonetheless, North Korean tanks are well optimized for warfare in the country's mountainous regions. However, the Chonma 2 appears to be the country's first tank that is truly highly internationally competitive in terms of performance, potentially stimulating exports to traditional customers such as Syria and Ethiopia.
Taking into account the concepts that shaped the country's armored warfare thinking, the Chonma 2's design is likely to prioritize extremely low maintenance requirements and remain lightweight and highly maneuverable, allowing operations in mountainous areas as well as on civilian bridges and roads. The new vehicle is North Korea's first completely clean design, with the original Chonma being very close to the T-62 and the Chonma-215/216 being loosely based on the original Chonma. The development of Chonma 2 comes at a time when North Korea's defense sector has made significant progress in performance areas and demonstrated the ability to independently produce modern hardware in areas such as cruise missile submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles, long-range unmanned reconnaissance drones and spy satellites.