Hanwha Defense Deploys Anti-Drone Air Defense Guns in the Field

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter]The next-generation wheeled anti-aircraft gun to replace the over 40-year-old outdated Vulcan will be deployed in the field.

According to Hanwha Defense on the 15th, the initial batch of the newly developed 30mm wheeled anti-aircraft guns, developed with domestic technology, has been produced and started to be deployed in the field.

The wheeled anti-aircraft gun has an increased range of about 1.6 times compared to the existing model, reaching 3 km, and is capable of automatic tracking and precision firing both day and night. It is expected to effectively respond to drone intrusions, which have emerged as a new threat to low-altitude air defense. The personnel required for operation has also been drastically reduced from 48 to 18. Utilizing a wheeled armored vehicle as the chassis, it can operate together with mobile units.

The existing 20mm Vulcan was towed, resulting in poor mobility, and its long period of use caused difficulties in logistics support. Night detection and tracking functions were also limited. For these reasons, there were many calls for a new low-cost, high-efficiency anti-aircraft gun suitable for future battlefield environments.

The development of the new anti-aircraft gun involved five major defense companies and 200 small and medium-sized partner companies, achieving about 95% localization. Hanwha Defense plans to sequentially deploy it to the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps by 2031 after operational testing, starting with this field deployment.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.