South Korea's Deadly Infantry Fighting Vehicle Is a Terror on the Battlefield

Ed Kim

Security, Asia

And possible the world's best. Introducing the K-21 IVF

For several years, South Korea has been in the throes of a military weapons binge. In particular, Seoul really wants weapons made in South Korea. Officials have a mix of concerns regarding the evolving nature of the U.S.-Korean alliance, the unique needs of defending their mountainous country and the desire to bolster an indigenous arms industry.

It hasn’t always gone well. One of the first attempts to create a completely independent weapons system was an armored infantry fighting vehicle — known as the K200 — in the mold of an American M-113.

Like the M113, it was designed to give a tracked armored option to carrying a squad of troops. Also like the M-113, the K200 has a .50-caliber machine gun as its heaviest weapon … and it’s lightly armored and slow. Worse, North Korean BMP-1s would find them to be easy prey in the event of a war.

So, in 2003, Seoul awarded a $77 million contract for the development of a new IFV called the K21. It’s arguably one of the best in the world.

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In many respects, the K21 is similar to modern NATO fighting vehicles like the Bradley, Warrior and the CV90. It has a three-man crew, an autocannon, tracks, anti-tank missiles and compliments for a modified squad of troopers in the rear.

But Seoul looked long and hard at existing IFVs, and South Korea’s battalion of BMP-3s received from Russia in the late ’90s during Project Brown Bear (where Soviet-era weapons were exchanged for debt forgiveness), and benchmarked all of them to come up with a platform that not only fit its needs, but could surpass other IFVs currently on the market.

The next generation Korean IFV — which became operational in 2009 — needed to be fully amphibious so to easily ford the numerous wide rivers that crisscrossed the peninsula, and it needed to have a high power-to-weight ratio to rapidly traverse the country’s ubiquitous hills and mountains.

Additionally, the new vehicle absolutely required enough armor to protect troops that, although still part of a conscript army, were drawn from an increasingly democratic and prosperous citizenry.

The K21’s armor is blend of military grade aluminum, ceramic tiles and fiberglass rated to withstand armor piercing rounds from the BMP-3’s 30-millimeter autocannon — with the sides capable of stopping rounds from 14.5-millimeter Russian heavy machine guns.