Hanwha K21 Infantry Fighting Vehicles
WASHINGTON: A US-Korean team had submitted a proposal to replace the Reagan-era M2 Bradley troop carrier, Hanwha officially announced today. The Korean builder of armored troop carriers will partner with American firm Oshkosh, which has extensive experience with military trucks but hasn’t built a tracked fighting vehicle.
That means the competition to build a future Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) now spans five countries on three continents. Confirmed competitors include
- Germany’s Rheinmetall, partnered with American firms Raytheon, Textron, L3Harris, and Allison Transmissions;
- BAE Systems – the US branch of a UK company – partnered with Israeli’s Elbit;
- General Dynamics, partnered with AeroVironment and Applied Intuition (all US-based);
- and now the Oshkosh-Hanwha US-Korean team.
Our Defense News colleague Jen Judson reports that a little-known Michigan-based firm, Mettle Ops, has also entered.
This strong industry response marks a stark contrast from the Army’s first take on OMFV, in 2019, for which only one company (General Dynamics) submitted bids. The service cancelled the original solicitation and rebooted OMFV with a somewhat more realistic timeline and less stringent demands on industry.
For starters, what the competitors submitted on April 15th was not working prototypes, or even complete designs, but broad “concepts” for how they would approach the complex trade-offs required to build the new combat vehicle. Up to five teams will win concept-development contracts, the Army has said. Then, in 2023, the service will pick up to three teams to finalize their designs and build full-up prototypes, with a final winner emerging in 2027 and the vehicle becoming operational in 2029.
JLTV on the Oshkosh production line.
The Oshkosh-Hanwha team enters this contest with strong credentials. Oshkosh has a strong record for advanced manufacturing and reliability. While it doesn’t build tracked armored fighting vehicles, it builds a staggering array of Army and Marine Corps trucks. That includes the heavily protected 4×4 Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), which incorporates the latest engineering to protect the occupants from roadside bombs and mines.
Meanwhile, Hanwha makes the South Korean army’s newest armored troop carrier, the K21, which entered service in 2009. Like the aging M2 Bradley and the future OMFV, the 11-year-old K21 is an Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV), designed to carry infantry into battle under armored protection, provide them supporting fire once they dismount to assault on foot, and kill other mid-weight armored vehicles.
Hanwha is offering an evolution of the K21, the Redback – what it calls “the world’s most advanced Infantry Fighting Vehicle” – in a competition in Australia. The Korean company s already building Australia’s new self-propelled howitzer, the AS9, in the Geelong area outside of Melbourne.
Hanwha “Redback” Infantry Fighting Vehicle
Hanwha also makes a host of lighter armored vehicles, such as Korea’s K2000 tracked troop carrier, the 6×6 Tigon, and the 4×4 Barracuda , as well as a light tank version of the K21, the K21-105. (Korea’s main battle tank, the K2 Black Panther, is built by Hyundai Rotem).
Worldwide, the company says, “Hanwha Defense has provided over 7,000 cutting-edge combat vehicles to the Republic of Korea and exports to Malaysia, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Poland, Turkey, and India.” Now it’s making its big play for the US market.
Any vehicle bought by the US Army, however, “will be built in America with American labor,” Hanwha emphasized in a statement.
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