A 5 Tril. Won Military Procurement Project

The Redback Armored Vehicle from Hanwha Defense

Hanwha Defense has been selected as one of the two finalists for the five-trillion-won Land 400 Phase 3 project of the Australian government.

Hanwha Defense announced on Sept. 17 that the Australian government has selected Hanwha Defense's Redback and German Rheinmetall Defense's Lynx as the final candidates for its future track armored vehicle procurement project.

Land 400 Phase 3 is a project to purchase future armored vehicles for the Australian military. Through the project, which is the largest land-based military hardware procurement plan in the history of the Australian military, the Australian government will purchase a total of 400 armored vehicles including infantry fighting vehicles and eight related vehicles. The entire project size amounts to 8 trillion won to 12 trillion won, with about 5 trillion won allocated for equipment acquisition alone.

Hanwha Defense's Redback competed with Rheinmetall Defense's Lynk, BAE's CV90, and General Dynamics' Ajax. The Australian military will select the final winner by the end of 2021 after putting the Redback and the Lynx to test for two years.

The Redback Armored Vehicle is a future-oriented track armored vehicle based on the technology developed for the K21 Infantry Fighting Vehicle and a power pack solution for the K9 Self-Propelled Artillery. It features a reinformced defensive power and firepower. The model is loaded with a 30 mm turret, antitank missiles, various detection and tracking functions and a defense system.

Hanwha Defense is participating in the project by forming Team Hanwha with EOS, a turret manufacturer in Australia. It established a subsidiary in Australia in January this year and hired local professionals to step up marketing activities. In addition, the company is working with the Victorian state government to establish a local plant, a localization strategy in line with the Australian military’s pursuit of self-defense capabilities.

“Hanwha Defense’s final nomination in the Australian project means that the global market duly recognized our company’s technological prowess and will to invest in the next-generation armored vehicle sector,” said Lee Sung-soo, CEO of Hanwha Defense. "Our good fight in the Australian market will serve as a golden opportunity to lead the way in the new market of future armored vehicles."

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