Image source: topwar.ru
Poland continues to implement a large-scale military capacity-building program, focusing on the purchase of modern foreign weapons, mainly from the United States and South Korea. At the same time, Warsaw does not forget about the development of its own defense industry, trying to localize maintenance, repair, modernization and even partial or full production of military equipment and its components purchased abroad.
The online edition of Defence24 announces that at the international defense industry exhibition in Poland MSPO 2023, which opens in Warsaw today, a prototype of the Homar-K MLRS, created on the basis of the South Korean K239 Chunmoo missile launcher, will be demonstrated by placing Polish Jelcz trucks produced by the large defense enterprise Huta Stalowa Wola (HSW SA) on the chassis. A framework agreement on the supply of 290 K239 Chunmoo MLRS and various types of ammunition to them for the Polish army by the South Korean company Hanwha Aerospace was signed in September last year. Deliveries of all ordered launchers should be completed in 2027.
The total value of the contract is $3.55 billion. Poland will receive the first 18 Korean-made launchers integrated with the Jelcz chassis by the end of 2023. They will enter service with the 18th Artillery Regiment stationed in Novaya Duba, where one of the HSW SA factories is located. It, in particular, produces ammunition that Poland supplies to Ukraine.
South Korean rocket launchers have an open architecture and can be equipped with various types of missiles. In particular, the MLRS can use six 239-mm guided ballistic missiles with a firing range of up to 290 kilometers, or twenty unguided 131-mm K33 missiles with a range of up to 36 kilometers. Moreover, two launch trays on one launcher can be loaded with combinations of different types of missiles, including Polish 122-mm missiles with a range of up to 160 km.
Prior to the start of the exhibition, the management of HSW SA refuses to disclose details of how ready the company is to produce the remaining components of this MLRS. The director of the company, Jan Shvedo, only told the publication that negotiations on this topic are underway and they are quite successful. At this stage, an agreement has already been reached on the serial production of rocket ammunition for K239 Chunmoo at the Polish enterprise. So far, the integration of MLRS launchers on the Jelcz platform is being carried out in South Korea.
The Jelcz truck on a chassis of type 882.57 with an armored cab with an 8x8 drive is a modification of the largest vehicle that was designed and manufactured at the Jelcz plant, part of the Huta Stalowa Wola concern. The total weight of the car ranges from 22.5 tons. The car is 11 meters long and 2.8 meters wide and is capable of overcoming off-road obstacles with a maximum height of up to 30 cm. It will also overcome a trench up to 60 cm wide and a water barrier 1-1.2 m deep. The machine is equipped with IVECO engines with a capacity of 430 or 540 hp.
In total, within the framework of the purchase program of South Korean K239 Chunmoo MLRS launchers and American HIMARS systems, which will also be installed on the chassis of the Jelcz truck, Poland plans to put about 750 of these systems into service in the coming years. According to the author of the article in the online edition, if Warsaw implements these ambitious plans, Poland will become "the largest artillery and missile power on the continent."
