During the Cold War, South Korea imported a large number of American air defense weapon systems, including the "Vulcan" 20 mm cannon. After the end of the Cold War, South Korea began to pursue an independent national defense policy and formulated a large number of weapons projects that introduced technology and developed independently. "Flying Tiger" is the first self-defense artillery developed by South Korea, and it is also the first large-scale weapon system to independently complete the development plan.
"Flying Tiger" was launched in 1983, but South Korea lacks the experience of independently developing integrated weapon systems. Although a large number of advanced ready-made technologies were introduced from abroad, the launch test and preliminary evaluation were not completed until 1992 nine years later. Since then, although South Korea faced the embarrassing situation of economic difficulties, lack of technology and distrust of the military, the Korean military department still insisted on completing the development of the system.
Military scientific research activities, represented by a number of Korean independent weapons projects, such as "Flying Tiger", have promoted the development and growth of the entire Korean military science and technology. For example, the Korea National Defense Science Research Institute, which participated in the Flying Tiger project, is the first national defense research institution established by South Korea to realize the strategic goal of "independent national defense". It has experienced an unusual development process from making simple soldier helmets to developing high-tech precision guided weapons, and has made important contributions to the construction of South Korea's armed forces. After years of development, the institution has developed from a small national defense research institution with only a few hundred people in the past to a large-scale comprehensive national defense research base and national defense science and technology research and guidance department, with four large-scale new weapons test sites.
At the beginning of the Flying Tiger Project, the research institute and military enterprises invested more than 600 scientific research teams, and the total project funds exceeded 654.38 billion US dollars. This project is actually Korea's first indigenous advanced weapon system, which is called the most outstanding achievement in the history of Korean military research and development by military experts.
The military requirements and overall demonstration of the Flying Tiger were completed by the National Defense Science Research Institute under the Ministry of National Defense of South Korea. The main contractor was Daewoo Heavy Industries at first, and later changed to Doosan Company. Subcontractors include Samsung Precision Instruments, which is responsible for the research and development of photoelectric equipment, and LG Precision, which is responsible for monitoring radar. In order to meet the final choice of the military, Daewoo Heavy Industries manufactured a variety of prototypes to participate in the demonstration test, and conducted a large number of performance tests and adaptability tests on a variety of "Flying Tiger" prototype systems in the later period of 1999, and finally finalized them in the middle period of 10/5438 in October. So far, the project has spent more than 60 million dollars.
After the Army's 2 1 month test, South Korea's Ministry of National Defense officially signed a contract in September 2006 to start mass production of the Flying Tiger system, and the Army first ordered 150 sets. In order to improve the development speed and keep the advanced technology, Daewoo Heavy Industry Machinery Co., Ltd. signed a contract with Raytheon Company of the United States in June 2002, which provided photoelectric tracking system for Flying Tiger system. The system consists of the second generation forward-looking infrared sensor and high performance TV sensor. It is a ground-to-air passive fire control system, which enables the Flying Tigers to intercept and track air targets.
However, the troops found problems in the subsequent use. For example, August 2004. The Ministry of National Defense revealed that the "Flying Tiger" system has serious defects and the manufacturer has promised to recall the products. The original "Flying Tiger" test fired 3,000 rounds, and by 2,800 rounds, there were problems with the repeating mechanism and the barrel. The manufacturer said it would take a year to solve the problem. And the barrel will be replaced after remodeling. More than 30 sets of Flying Tigers have been recalled and delivered to the troops.
This incident triggered a comprehensive reflection on the autonomous weapon system by Korean military enterprises. However, in order to restore confidence in domestic weapons and develop their further export potential, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense ordered the National Defense Procurement Project Department to sign a production contract with Doosan Company for 543 million US dollars again in March 2007, when the previous production plan of 200 1 was not completed. According to the plan of the Ministry of National Defense, by 20 16, it will spend more than1800 million dollars to purchase 400 sets of "Flying Tiger" anti-aircraft gun systems.
While increasing mass production, South Korea's Ministry of National Defense is organizing scientific research to improve the existing "Flying Tiger" system, mainly including expanding the localization rate of parts. Develop new chassis to adapt to more complex terrain environment. South Korea also exhibited the "Flying Tigers" at several international weapons exhibitions, actively promoting it and trying to occupy a place in short-range mobile air defense.
The "Flying Tiger" self-propelled anti-aircraft gun is mainly responsible for the low-altitude defense mission of the Korean army. Although the "Flying Tiger" system is a masterpiece of multinational technology, it is still an independent product of South Korea in general. As the first advanced weapon system developed by Korea. In terms of performance, it is branded with the development trend of world air defense weapons. South Korea's independent development also has some new features.
General components and advanced technologies Due to the weak military industry foundation in South Korea, Flying Tigers try to choose general and existing designs to make future production and maintenance more convenient. For example, the "Flying Tiger" anti-aircraft gun system and the "Tianma" missile system use the same chassis, which was developed by South Korea for the first-generation tracked armored vehicle K200. K200 was produced by Daewoo Company of Korea in 1985, with a total output of 2,000 vehicles, including infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers and command and communication vehicles. The vehicle adopts D2848V8 turbocharged diesel engine and T300 semi-automatic gearbox, and is equipped with the same torsion bar suspension device as M 1 13 armored vehicle. The car has good maneuverability, and the maximum highway speed reaches 70 kilometers per hour.
In order to make the chassis suitable for "Flying Tiger" and "Tianma" systems, the K200 chassis is specially lengthened. The extensive use of this universal component reduces the risk and cost of technology development. In the technology development, multinational technologies are selected, which integrates the strengths of many countries and maintains the technological advancement of the "Flying Tiger" system. But in the overall design, the compatibility of technology is more prominent.
00 high degree of automation, fast combat response "Flying Tiger" tracked double-tube self-propelled antiaircraft gun is equipped with high-performance pulse Doppler search radar, infrared photoelectric tracking system and computer equipment. The LGGSTAR-30X search radar is made in Korea with a search range of 0.3 ~ 2 1 km. The photoelectric tracking device is composed of thermal imager, optical camera and laser rangefinder, which is responsible for the tracking and aiming of anti-aircraft guns. The maximum tracking and aiming distance is 5 ~ 7 kilometers. Although the firepower is slightly inferior to the 35 mm cannon equipped by the German cheetah and the Japanese 87 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun.
However, because the "Flying Tiger" self-propelled antiaircraft gun adopts a more advanced fire control system, it can make up for its firepower performance. It can accurately lock the target and attack the air target 3 kilometers away at the speed of 1200 rounds per minute. Together with the "Tianma" air defense missile system, it can form a low-altitude defense network to effectively combat the "incoming enemy aircraft" at a height of 5 kilometers. In particular, it has basically realized automation in finding, tracking, locking and attacking targets. Each system is operated by gunner, gunner and pilot, and the air combat response time is within 6-7 seconds. With the support of the new photoelectric system, the Flying Tiger has the ability to fight day and night, and has four fire modes: radar, semi-automatic, manual and ground remote control. Greatly improved the Korean army's combat capability in various conditions and tactical environments.
Strong power and good mountain adaptability. As the Flying Tiger is equipped with a large anti-aircraft turret, a pair of load wheels are added to the extended K200 chassis, which increases the combat weight to 25 tons. In order to maintain maneuverability, the chassis of Flying Tiger was changed from D2848T engine with a maximum output of 206 kW on K200 to D2840L diesel engine with a maximum output of 382 kW, and T300 semi-automatic gearbox on K200 was changed to HMPT-500-3 automatic gearbox. This new power module can provide enough power for a larger chassis and weapon load, and maintain a better aircraft of the Flying Tiger.
Dynamic. The new system can not only adapt to the high mobility of hilly areas in the south of the Korean peninsula, but also meet the requirements of complex terrain in the north. It is worth mentioning that after the power upgrade of Flying Tiger, K200 also adopted this scheme to launch the mountain extension K200A 1.
"Flying Tiger" with high firing rate and limited ammunition power is equipped with a double air defense turret and two KCB 30mm cannon. The gun was authorized by Jiro Company of Switzerland to be produced in Korea. The maximum firing rate of a single gun is 600 rounds per minute, with an effective range of 3 kilometers and an effective shooting height of 2 kilometers. The main bomb bay of "Flying Tiger" system is equipped with 500 shells, and the spare bomb bay is equipped with 100 shells. The magazine is equipped with an automatic ammunition conveying system, which can complete the ammunition supply within 6 minutes. The cannon used in "Flying Tiger" system can theoretically deal with ground targets, but its barrel pitch range is+10 ~+85 degrees, so it can't shoot horizontally or overhead, so it doesn't have the ability to shoot ground targets. In addition, the ammunition used in this gun mainly includes burning high-explosive bomb, trailing light burning high-explosive bomb, armor-piercing burning high-explosive bomb, training bomb, trailing light training bomb and so on. Moreover, the penetration ability of the armor-piercing projectile without the stability of the tail is better.
The localization rate is gradually high and the production cost is low. The South Korean military claimed that the live-fire shooting test of the "Flying Tiger" system showed that the technical performance of the system was ahead of other similar anti-aircraft gun systems abroad. And that cost is low. This is mainly due to the increasing localization rate of the system, especially in the second batch of orders from the Korean Army, the main electronic systems such as system tracker, sight and IFF have been independently produced. The improvement of localization rate greatly facilitates the logistics maintenance of the system.
Besides. Under the command of advanced fire control system, "Flying Tiger" not only has all-weather combat capability, high hit probability and fast response speed, but also has high electronic countermeasures capability. The South Korean military claims that the "Flying Tiger" system has high export potential in the arms market.
South Korea's "Flying Tiger" anti-aircraft gun system has a high probability of killing targets in low-altitude air defense, and is mainly used to attack low-altitude aircraft, helicopters and drones.
The future civil war predicted by the Korean army to improve its air defense capability is that after the large-scale invasion of the north, the south will retreat in large numbers. For example, Seoul, as the largest city in South Korea, is only a few tens of kilometers away from the military demarcation line of the peninsula. In wartime, Korean fighter planes took off from the airport near the military demarcation line on the peninsula, and it only took two or three minutes to fly over Seoul where a large number of American and Korean soldiers and civilians gathered. At the beginning of the war, a large number of mechanized troops stationed at the north-south military demarcation line needed high-mobility air defense fire support. However, eagle missiles and Vulcan anti-aircraft guns imported from South Korea during the Cold War have very limited mobility and can only be deployed in preset positions, which seriously restricts the large-scale mobility of troops.
Since the end of the last century, the North Korean army began to have certain close air support capabilities, which requires the Korean army to have strong ground mobility to improve the survivability of the troops, and this highly mechanized mobility requires the air defense forces to also have agile accompanying air defense capabilities. "Flying Tiger" and "Tianma" developed under this background. At present, its mobility is basically the same as that of high-mobility armored forces, mainly K200.