사진 확대
South Korean defense companies are looking for an entry point into the U.S. ground weapons market. After Hanwha Aerospace recently won a prototype supply contract in the U.S. Army’s Mobile Tactical Cannon program, it is also turning its attention to ammunition, guided weapons, and unmanned vehicles.
According to industry sources on the 27th, Hanwha Defense USA, Hanwha Aerospace’s U.S. subsidiary, signed a prototype development contract with the U.S. Army on the 18th local time. The deal calls for the supply of six K9MH prototypes, a wheeled version of the K9, and includes an option to provide 12 more. The contract is worth $262.9 million including the option. If deployment is approved after four years of testing and evaluation, it will replace the M777 towed howitzer.
Ammunition is seen as the next frontier. The United States has production capacity, but output is still not rising fast enough to meet targets. In January, Hanwha Defense USA signed a lease agreement with the U.S. Army for idle land at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas and plans to invest $1.3 billion to build a facility for propellant and energetic materials production.
It later hired the executive who had led development of the local ammunition plant project as its program director. In Opelika, Alabama, it is also building an integration and testing facility for the K9 family of self-propelled howitzers. Hanwha Aerospace recently decided to inject $149 million into a capital increase for Hanwha Defense USA, which it wholly owns. That amount exceeds the total funds it has invested in the subsidiary so far. U.S. ammunition output remains far below target. According to a recent report released by the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Army was producing 36,000 155 mm shells per month as of March this year, well short of its goal of 100,000 shells per month by October 2025. The U.S. Army is said to believe that additional investment is needed in metal parts manufacturing, assembly and packaging facilities, and propellant production to meet the target.
In guided weapons, interceptor missile inventories are becoming a key variable. Even with leading players such as Lockheed Martin, the problem is that production cannot keep up with consumption. The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. has assessed that U.S. stocks of Patriot interceptor missiles have fallen sharply. Hanwha Aerospace developed the ballistic missile interceptor for the Long-range Surface-to-Air Missile program and also won the follow-on L-SAM-II project, giving it interceptor development capabilities.
LIG Defense & Aerospace is preparing to enter the U.S. market with its 2.75-inch guided rocket, Poniard. After being selected in 2019 as a candidate for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Foreign Comparative Testing program, Poniard underwent testing and evaluation to meet U.S. military requirements. In the final test in Hawaiian waters in 2024, all six rockets fired hit their targets. In April, the company established a local U.S. subsidiary, LIG Defense U.S. Inc., in Arlington, Virginia, and hired a retired Navy vice admiral who previously served as commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s surface forces as its chief adviser.
The outlook for multipurpose unmanned vehicles is still limited. Hanwha Aerospace’s Arion-SMET completed FCT at a U.S. Marine Corps training site in Hawaii in December 2023, but no follow-up project has materialized in the United States since then. In South Korea, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration has selected it as the military’s multipurpose unmanned vehicle model, and a mass-production contract is expected soon.
The situation is different in areas where the United States already has sufficient supply capacity. The U.S. Army’s main battle tank is the M1 Abrams made by General Dynamics Land Systems. As a result, Hyundai Rotem is focusing more on Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America rather than pushing the K2 tank into the U.S. market. Still, it is seen as possible that the company could enter the maintenance, repair, and overhaul segment for weapons systems already in use by the U.S. military. Market research firm Mordor Intelligence forecasts that the U.S. defense industry market will grow from $354.5 billion this year to $423.9 billion in 2031.
[Park Seung-ju]
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.