The Ch'ŏnma (Chosŏn'gŭl: 천마; Hanja: 天馬 meaning 'Pegasus'), often inaccurately referred to as Chonma-Ho, is one of North Korea's secretive indigenous main battle tank designs.

After the Armistice Agreement of the Korean War in 1953, North Korea found itself in need of much more modern equipment.

[citation needed] It is known that the North Koreans still make limited use of vintage World War II T-34s as well as the Soviet-era PT-76 amphibious tanks.

[7] The Ch'ŏnma has been issued to North Korea's premier armored formations, and would lead the initial attempts to break through South Korean defences.

[9] The Ch'ŏnma is a product of North Korea's approach of Juche, or self-reliance, which also includes several indigenous self-propelled artillery pieces.

In that sense, North Korean military strategy is very mobile, and the large numbers of tanks underscores this.

[12] This would increase the turret's interior space, perhaps providing more ammunition capacity by enabling the radio and other equipment to be stored elsewhere.

In 1992 (albeit initially spotted in 1985), the Ch'ŏnma was shown in a parade with external laser rangefinders over the base of the gun barrel.

[11] Ch'ŏnma-98, first seen in 2000 and known to western analysts as Chonma-Ho IV/Ra, was an evolution of the Ch'ŏnma-92, replacing the turret with a slightly larger one (of the same shape),[12] thus implying a revised composite array layout.

It has been theorised that this variant received a new thermal gunner sight and fire-control system, possibly imported from Iran (such as those used on their Chieftains), but this is unconfirmed and purely speculation.

North Korea is rumored to have received a few examples of the T-72s after 1992, and possibly a single T-90S main battle tank in August 2001.

In August 2010 North Korean media revealed images of its new main battle tank the P'okp'ung (also known as the M-2002), which had been rumoured to have been under development since the early 1990s and to have undergone performance trials in 2002.

While precise details of its capabilities remain unclear, the P'okp'ung appears to be simply a further improvement of the Ch'ŏnma.