'Was the goal too ambitious?'... Tactical Bridge Project Relaunched After 20 Years

Wasting Time on World's Longest 60m ROC Setting
Development to Be Handled by Private Bridge Company, Not Defense Contractor

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] The Korean tactical bridge project is being relaunched after more than 20 years. Inside and outside the military, there are criticisms that the Joint Chiefs of Staff set the bridge's performance requirement condition (ROC) to the world's longest length, causing domestic development to fail and only delaying the timeline.

On the 29th, an official from the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) stated, "We signed a contract with a domestic bridge company on the 23rd of this month for the Tactical Bridge-II project."

A tactical bridge is a temporary bridge installed when a bridge is destroyed during wartime, essential equipment for moving military supplies and troops. The next tactical bridge project was initiated in 2003 at the request of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Expected appearance of the Tactical Bridge-II, which the Defense Acquisition Program Administration has started developing. Provided by DAPA

At that time, the Joint Chiefs set the bridge length ROC at 60m, the world's longest. The military set the ROC at 60m based on the expected range of bridge damage during wartime by the ROK-US Combined Forces Command. There are four defense companies overseas producing tactical bridges, including the UK (BAE, WFEL), Sweden (Kockums), and Germany (Cassidian). Their bridge lengths are 52m, 49m, 56m, and 46m respectively.

Initially, domestic defense companies planned to complete development by December 2013. However, defects occurred during six test evaluations conducted from 2009 to June 2013, ultimately resulting in failure to install the bridge. Related organizations such as the Defense Technology Quality Institute held technical review committees and concluded that domestic development was difficult.

As domestic defense companies failed to develop a 60m bridge, the ROC was lowered, and the length of 'Block-I' was set to 44m, and 'Block-II' to 52m for development.

DAPA plans to rename the next tactical bridge project as 'Tactical Bridge-II' and proceed by selecting a bridge company instead of a defense company. Yushin will handle the design, Cheongam ENC the bridge assembly, Hyundai Everdigm the installation vehicle, and SNT the installation beam.

The problem is that the defense companies that previously failed in development have no way to receive compensation. It is known that the companies invested hundreds of billions of won in bridge development and suffered losses, and even the 19.2 billion won development cost invested by the military at that time was recovered.

An industry official said, "If companies have to bear losses just because they failed in weapon development, who would take on weapon development?" and added, "The government should not only step up when promoting defense exports but also implement active policies for weapon development."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.