FRESH

Hacker News

Home

The rise of South Korea’s weapons business

152 points by JumpCrisscross

by tristanj

4 subcomments

This article uses so many words to focus on the political reasons, but completely ignores the primary driver: Cost.
Korean weapons systems are 40-60% cheaper than their American counterparts.
The Korean K9 Thunder 155mm self-propelled howitzer costs $3.5 to $4 million per unit. For comparison, the American M109A7 Paladin costs around $8 million. The German PzH 2000 runs approximately $7 to $8 million.
The K239 Chunmoo Rocket Artillery (MLRS) system runs $2.0M/unit; M142 HIMARS runs $4.5M/unit. 155mm artillery shells are $2k/shell from Korea vs $3.5k/shell from the United States. Korean Cheongung II SAM interceptors cost ~$1.1M/unit, US Patriot missiles cost $4.0M/unit.
Buying South Korean weapons systems means you can procure twice as much at the same cost. It's a no brainer why Korea is winning military contracts.
[0] https://militarymachine.com/k9-thunder-howitzer-most-exporte...

by abixb

0 subcomment

The Australian Military Aviation History channel on YouTube has a series of two fantastic videos on South Korea's KF-21 "Borame" program, and it also touches quite a bit on South Korean defense industrial base as a whole. [0][1]
As a military aviation enthusiast , I couldn't be happier that there seems to be a lot more diversity in military hardware developments, especially in close to state-of-the-art fighter jets, such as China's J-20/J-35, Turkey's KAAN, the GCAP/FCAS program, etc, with Dassault working on critical upgrades to current Rafales as well.
Global South countries have a lot more options for close to cutting edge military hardware than they had even a decade or two ago to close the gap with the West.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wFL0eRJVGQ
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6X5zuthz-s

by beloch

1 subcomments

"South Koreans are hoping to change that with a $60 billion submarine deal Hanwha Ocean is trying to sign with Canada; it would be the largest military procurement deal in Ottawa’s history. But the peninsula faces a formidable opponent in Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, which has a long track record of producing submarines for NATO countries. Canada is expected to announce the winning company later in June — which means the South Korean government and Hanwha still have a little time to lobby Ottawa — but the odds look increasingly slim, according to Kim, the president of SMI."
--------------
What's interesting about the German/Korean bids to build subs for Canada is that both countries are offering package deals that include building other military vehicles and parts in Canada. This isn't just going to be a one-time purchase of military goods. The deal, whichever country gets it, will, ideally, kick-start long-term cooperation. The Canadian government seems to want what they used to have with the U.S., only with more reliable partners that won't regularly threaten their sovereignty.
This isn't so much a rise of SK's weapons business as it is the rise of a new, integrated military supply chain centred around NATO and close allies, but with a deliberate move away from U.S. suppliers.

by Tsiklon

0 subcomment

Poland I imagine is a tremendous exponent of South Korea’s arms industry.
I always thought of arms procurement as a tedious and slow process but the Polish/Korean agreements have turned that on its head in my eyes.
Simultaneously supplying new tanks, artillery, and munitions, while quickly standing up local factories to build them in Poland too is impressive, undoubtedly giving the Polish government some well needed breathing room.
Given that the technical package is included here, there must be some form of non-competition clause

by jessinra98

0 subcomment

The speed at which Korea has supplied tanks, artillery, munitions, and even set up local production faster than traditional arms procurement.

by yongjik

0 subcomment

Due to the geopolitical situation, South Korean military has invested a crazy amount of resources on firepower. It has 2,780 self-propelled artillery vehicles, which is number #3 in the world (after Russia and China). The US (#4) has 1,521.
For a random comparison, Poland has 593 and Germany has 134.
(source: https://www.globalfirepower.com/armor-self-propelled-guns-to... )
...that is, (depending on what you want) South Korea has proven experience in building a ton of military equipment on time. Also, due to the dreadful climate of Korean peninsula, if something works in Korea, it will work pretty much everywhere except for desert (and maybe the arctic).

by kwillets

0 subcomment

This trend has been obvious since at least the Poland deal. Korea gets much more return on its defense dollar manufacturing exportable weapons systems than relying on imports or domestic-only programs.

by Danox

1 subcomments

Sounds good, but they won’t be able to sell them to anyone without the United States giving permission and butting in at every potential sale.

by Animats

4 subcomments

Other countries with rising weapons businesses are Ukraine and Iran.
The best endorsement for a weapons manufacturer is winning a war against a tough opponent.

by zuzululu

1 subcomments

South Korea's self-reliance on weapons came straight out of vietnam war, where they were initially sending soldiers with WW2 weapons and became frustrated with the fragile American rifle that were provided, President Park directly launched Korea's own DOD (Agency for Defense Development aka ADD) which has been successful at repurposing soviet and american designs at a time where both countries were unsupportive. The K2 rifle in particular follows the same philosophy of essentially taking the grunty but reliable/rugged simplicity and then adding very economical/cost effective capacity advancements. The collapse of soviet union directly contributed to South Korea's rocket program and ballistic missile design advancement which at the time was embarassing and behind north korea ( The original hyunmoo was a repurposed american nike missile meant for air defence) You will notice the cold start process of Hyunmoo series and Russian designs are identical. Instead of repaying debt Russia sent tanks T80Us for example in return for Korean cup ramen. Lots of learning going on and South Korea ha been exceptional in particular Germany's submarine program and their unwillingness to distribute/share tech lead to Koreans adapting and successfully competing for Canada's submarine program.
Of late the Iran war showed that South Korea's anti-air as well as Biho class armor vehicles engaged drones well in UAE leading them to "we'll send you all we have now and you can pay us later" have won major trust from the region
Unlike China and Russias own weaponry which have largely been proven as duds, Korean weapons are giving American manufacturers a run for their money and if Korea can pull off the middle east region, it would not only secure oil directly while bypassing US dollar settlement, it could establish a sort of oil-for-korean-weapons and perhaps even soldiers in the near future, I think that this is the particular threat that America sees from its own ally and there will likely be some efforts to curb or limit South Korea as this article I think is starting to set the tone for.

by spwa4

0 subcomment

I wonder what people actually expect the result of a "multipolar" world is going to be? Of course, this will mean a great many more conflicts.

by paradoxyl

0 subcomment

Gross incompetent Western elites, shoved full of garbage ideology, go and outsource all manufacturing and are astounded, astounded! that countries and peoples that dare to resist their tyranny can build cheaper than their corrupt, criminal networks of nepotism.

by bell-cot

3 subcomments

Maybe HN should ban words matching "surpris" from Titles?
Even if you are clueless about the international arms trade - South Korea has maintained a huge military for the past 70-ish years, as part of their endless cold war with North Korea. And South Korea has been really big on manufacturing and exporting all sorts of stuff for the past half-ish-century. Why the hell wouldn't they be selling the military things that they are building anyway, at scale, to any and every non-enemy with money to spend?