Tanks for Your Money, Suckers

07213726.jpgThe North Korean Army is holding winter exercises, and the Joongang Ilbo has the tank porn. This cream puff is a Soviet PT-76, or ChiCom clone of one. The PT-76 is no match for a main battle tank — it sacrifices armor protection in exchange for an amphibious capability, and its gun can’t penetrate the armor of any main battle tank.

Frankly, I can’t really see why the North Korean army is so fond of these lightly-armored amphibious tanks in a place that’s not especially thick with rivers, and where it’s widely expected that North Korea would have to attack when the rice paddies are all frozen. I still wouldn’t drive a PT-76 through a wet paddy, and you can’t climb Korea’s rocky hills with one. On the other hand, Korea is full of natural choke-points, which makes it great ambush country for infantry with RPG-2‘s or AT-4‘s. In fact, when I was in the Army, I recall being surprised to learn that you could drill your way into one of these with a .50 caliber machine gun. The North Koreans also make the PT-85, a slightly up-gunned, up-armored variant, but as you no doubt noticed, it has five road wheels, not six.

Love the message of peace and brotherly love on the sign, by the way:

In an indication that the North had directly targeted the South in its exercise, four of the photos showed signs bearing names of South Korean cities and highways. In one, a tank is seen passing a sign reading, “The Chungang Expressway, Chuncheon-Busan 374 km,” in reference to a highway that connects Gangwon province on the east coast and the Gyeongsang regions in the southeast.

I wonder where South Korea can go to claim a refund for all that money it wasted on the Sunshine Policy. Laugh all you want. Your tax dollars paid for it, too.

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5 Responses

  1. I’m trying to imagine that thing firing at an Abrams without laughing my ass off. I have the same reaction when I imagine the Abrams firing back.

    If Wiki is correct, the strongest armor on the 76 is 14mm. Give a decent sniper a Barrett and a diagram of the insides and the mechanized forces of the DPRK are in some deep Kimchi.

  2. Wonder how big this NK exercise really was. Wonder how many vehicles they operated at once. They can’t have enough gas to do any meaningful training. They can’t have fired enough practice rounds to give them any probability of hitting anything. They can’t have more than a small fraction of their tank park maintained in any sort of ready condition. These factors, even more than antiquated weaponry, make this a not-very intimidating feat of saber rattling.

  3. Actually, the Norks have been studying OIF and OEF and are fully prepared to transition to irregular warfare/unconventional warfare. Can’t say much more than that, but tanks are borderline inconsequential in a potential resumption of hostilities on pen. They know they’ll get crushed in a conventional war but that as OIF/OEF demonstrates, that isn’t a defeat, but a transition point to another type of warfare. Kim jong Il is evil, but not stupid.