According to a tweet posted by Junsupreme (@RyszardJonski) on October 17, Hanwha Defense will supply a total of 288 Chunmoo launchers and 23,000 rockets to Poland. It is planned to use the Jelcz 8×8 and BMS Topaz. The value of this purchase is estimated at $6.12 billion. The executive agreement is to be signed in December, and the first squadron will receive the vehicles in 2023.
As written by Kang Hyun-kyung in the Korea Times, in a media interview on October 14th, Polish Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said negotiations between Poland and South Korea had been completed and a contract will be signed during his visit to South Korea next week: “It’s an excellent artillery weapon and based on our observations from the war in Ukraine, we can clearly see how much advantage artillery can create on the battlefield,” Blaszczak was quoted as saying in an interview with local news site I.PL.
The K239 Chunmoo multiple rocket launcher was developed in 2013 by both Hanwha Corporation and Doosan DST to replace the aging K136 Kooryong: the rocket was developed by Hanwha and the launcher by Doosan. The Chunmoo carries two launch pods able to fire different calibers of rockets: it can fire 130mm non-guided rockets (20 rockets in each pod), 227mm non-guided rockets (6 rockets in each pod), and 239mm guided rockets (6 rockets in each pod). The 130mm rockets have a range of 36 Km while the larger 230mm-class rockets have a range of about 80 Km for the non-guided one, and 160 Km for the guided variant. In the South Korean army, a Chunmoo battery consists of 18 vehicles and uses the K200A1 as a command vehicle.