Chonma-ho
Sign in to saveThe '''Ch'ŏnma''' (Chosŏn'gŭl: 천마; Hanja: 天馬 meaning 'Pegasus'), Chonma-Ho, is one of North Korea's secretive indigenous main battle tank designs. The tank is also known by the name of 천리마 전차 (千里馬 or the "Chollima Tank"). The Ch'ŏnma is based on the Soviet T-62. There are at least seven different operational versions of the Ch'ŏnma. Since its inception, the Ch'ŏnma has undergone several extensive upgrades. Little public information is available about this tank, and its most recent public appearance was the Ch'ŏnma 20 at the military parade commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the Workers Part
Key facts
- Weapon.name
- Ch'ŏnma
- Weapon.image
- border|300px
- Weapon.caption
- Ch'ŏnma-92 during the Military parade commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Korean People's Army in 1992
- Weapon.origin
- North Korea
- Weapon.type
- Main battle tank
- Weapon.is_vehicle
- yes
- Weapon.wars
- Ethiopian Civil WarIran-Iraq War
- Weapon.designer
- Second Machine Industry Bureau
- Weapon.design_date
- Before 1980
- Weapon.production_date
- 1971
- Weapon.number
- More than 1,200
- Weapon.weight
- 37 tonnes (base Ch'ŏnma)
- Weapon.length
- Hull length: 6.63 m (21.8 ft)
- Weapon.width
- 3.52 m (11.5 ft)
- Weapon.height
- 2.4 m (7.9 ft)
- Weapon.crew
- 4
- Weapon.armour
- Cast turret, spaced armor, explosive reactive armour
- Weapon.engine
- Diesel
via Wikipedia infobox
~13 min read
Encyclopedic overview
13 sectionsContents
- Background
- Role
- Production history
- Deployment history
- Models
- Variants
- Operators
- Current
- Former
- See also
- Notes
- References
- External links
The '''Ch'ŏnma''' (Chosŏn'gŭl: 천마; Hanja: 天馬 meaning 'Pegasus'), Chonma-Ho, is one of North Korea's secretive indigenous main battle tank designs. The tank is also known by the name of 천리마 전차 (千里馬 or the "Chollima Tank"). The Ch'ŏnma is based on the Soviet T-62. There are at least seven different operational versions of the Ch'ŏnma. Since its inception, the Ch'ŏnma has undergone several extensive upgrades. Little public information is available about this tank, and its most recent public appearance was the Ch'ŏnma 20 at the military parade commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the Workers Party of Korea (WPK) held in Pyongyang, North Korea, on 11th October 2025.
==Background== After the Armistice Agreement of the Korean War in 1953, North Korea found itself in need of much more modern equipment. Prior to the start of open hostilities, North Korea had acquired 379 T-34s from the Soviet Union. According to a report to the United States Congress in 2000, the North Korean military had up to 2,000 tanks garrisoned along the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) alone.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Chonma-ho” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.