K9 Thunder 155mm Self-Propelled Gun
Channel: Main Battle Tank
Date: 2023-04-17

The K9 Thunder is a relatively new addition to the forces of the South Korea Army and is of indigenous design and production. Having spent decades utilizing American-based weaponry, the nation has increasingly looked inwards to field a more modern army to counter any aggression from the North. A complete nation for a time in its history, Korea was divided after Japanese invasion in World War 2 between the communist North (backed by the Soviet Union) and the democratic South (backed by the United States. A formal invasion of the South by the North (with Soviet and Chinese blessing) brought about the Korean War (1950-1953) that ultimately resulted in a loose armistice with the conclusion of war never formerly declared. As such, the North and South have seen tensions rise and fall throughout the decades since the division, leading to a regional arms race backed by major world powers. Despite the constant threat of nuclear weapons across the Korean Peninsula today, it remains that artillery will play a grand role in any large-scale ground operations between the North and South armies and the K9 Thunder fits the bill - able to lob 155mm high-explosive, nuclear, anti-infantry projectiles some 40 kilometers away. The K9 is in the same class of vehicles as the highly modernized American M109 "Paladin", the British AS-90 and German PzH-2000 155mm self-propelled gun platforms and utilizes the latest in South Korean engineering and digital technology unmatched by any product of the North.