Developed by Hyundai Rotem as a private venture in 2012, the Korean Army declared a plan to acquire 600 6×6 and 8×8 wheeled APCs in order to help build rapid response forces modeled after U.S. Stryker combat brigades, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA).
[7][8] On 9 May 2016, the vehicles, officially designated as the K808 and K806, passed their final qualification tests, allowing for production to begin for deployment the next year; 600 units are to be produced by 2023.
Their wheeled designs make them better suited for contributing to United Nations peacekeeping operations and finding export markets.
[9][10] Hyundai Rotem expected an order by October 2016 for 16 low-rate initial production vehicles to be delivered to the ROKA for field trials, scheduled to last until late 2017.
[11] In September 2018, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration announced Hyundai Rotem would begin mass-producing the K806 and K808 vehicles later in the year.
[15] In Korean service, the K806/K808 will be outfitted with a one-person protected weapon station armed with an M2HB machine gun rather than an RWS, to reduce acquisition costs, although the company could supply such systems if requested.