August 10, 2025: The new American M1E3 tanks are a significant improvement over the current M1 SepV3. In early 2024 the United States sent 31 M1 tanks to Ukraine. These tanks began arriving in September 2023 and were put to work and performed well. The M1E3 will begin arriving in two or three years. Its improvements over the M1 SepV3 include reducing the weight to under 60 tons so the tank can use more bridges. E3 has a modular design making it easier to replace broken components or install upgraded or new components. E3 has an improved fire control system, upgraded sensors and upgraded protection.

The new South Korean K3 tank is powered by a hybrid engine, a new type of armor, an unmanned turret, and a targeting system using Artificial Intelligence to increase the speed and accuracy of firing the smoothbore 130mm main gun. The K3 is not expected to enter service until 2040. The K3 is being developed by the manufacturer Hyundai Rotem and the South Korean Agency for Defense Development/ADD and the Defense Agency for Technology and Quality.

The new tank is designed to provide improved mobility and protection. The unmanned turret is featureless, lacking the various devices visible on and often protruding from the turret. All the 130mm gun ammunition is in the turret, providing more protection for the crew. TheK3 also carries reconnaissance/surveillance drones. These are launched and recovered from an aperture in the rear of the turret.

The three man crew works inside a capsule providing further protection if the tank is hit. Cameras and other sensors are mounted on the tank exterior, most of them flush with the hull. A wide range of sensors and cameras, incorporating virtual reality, will offer a 360-degree view of the tank’s surroundings and warnings of attacks and the source of threat location.

Initially the K3 will use a dual-mode hydrogen/diesel engine, but ultimately the K3’s engine will be powered by fuel cells which are quieter and generate less heat for enemy infrared sensors to detect. Most tanks use heat and sound detection to spot and identify enemy tanks. Fuel cell-powered engines are also easier to maintain and provide better performance while travelling offroad on difficult terrain. The tank has an has an adaptive suspension which enables road speeds of up to 80 kilometers an hour.

Artificial Intelligence can, if the tank commander chooses, operate the fire control system and its autonomous target tracking and engagement system. This enables the gun to aim and fire more quickly and accurately than when under crew control. The crew can take back control at any time, instead of just instructing the fire control what to do.

The unmanned turret has an autoloader for the 130mm gun, as well as Anti-Tank Guided Missile/ATGMs launcher that fires missiles with a range of nearly eight kilometers. That’s more than twice the range of the 130mm gun. The K3 has an improved Active Protection System/APS that deals with more threats and does it more efficiently. All this will be expensive and it's possible that the current list of K3 features and capabilities will be trimmed because they are too expensive or take too long to develop. The target delivery date of 2040 reflects this.

Meanwhile there’s the 56-ton K2. The experience developing and delivering this tank gave K3 developers some practical experience in what to expect while getting the K3 into service. In 2021 South Korea resumed production of its new K2 tank, after a year's delay because of problems with the engine. These problems were first discovered in 2008, but proved more difficult to fix than anticipated. The prototype began testing five years earlier, but there were lots of other problems, and delays. Three prototypes were built, and the numerous delays led to a reduction of the production order from 500 to 380.

The K2 replaced older American M-48 tanks, and completed the transformation of the South Korean tank force. Two decades ago, South Korea developed, and built, its own K1 tank. The 51 ton K1 was based on the American M1 design, but is somewhat smaller and equipped with the same 105mm gun used by the U.S. M60 tank. The K1 has a 1,200 horsepower diesel, instead of a 1,500 horsepower gas turbine engine in the M1. Production of the K1 ended in 1997, with about a thousand built. There have since been some upgrades to the fire control and communications systems, as well as the development of the K1A1, which has the same 120mm gun as the M1, along with other equipment used by the M1, but not the K1. The K1A1 is apparently part of the K2 development project, as only two K1A1 prototypes were built, and successfully tested.

So far South Korea has 250 K2s with another 150 on order. Another 18o are being built for Poland and all current K2 ten tanks a month production is going to Poland. Eventually Poland may have a thousand K2s, most of them built in Poland under license. The K2 which entered service in 2008 was superior to current North Korean, Japanese or Chinese tanks. The K2 had features that were upgraded for the proposed K3. This includes an improved electronic system and fire control system that can hit helicopters and other slow low flying aircraft. K2 was a substantial improvement over the 1,511 54-t0n K1 tanks built between 1984 and 2024.

Both the K1 and K2 found many export customers.