Croatia Signs €435M Deal for 18 Hanwha K239 Chunmoo Launchers

Croatia signed contracts worth about €435.2 million on 10 September for 18 South Korean K239 Chunmoo multiple rocket launchers, ammunition and a Polish-supplied command-and-control layer, closing one of the largest equipment programmes in the modern history of the Croatian Armed Forces.

Defence Minister Ivan Anušić signed the main procurement contract with Hanwha Aerospace chief executive Billy Boo-Hwan Lee at government headquarters in Zagreb, in the presence of Prime Minister Andrej Plenković. Hanwha’s share of the package is valued at €411.8 million; a separate agreement covering the delivery and integration of the command-and-control system was signed with Poland’s WB Electronics.

“This is one of the largest investments in the equipment and modernisation of the Croatian Armed Forces,” Plenković said at the signing.

What Croatia is buying

The Hanwha contract covers 18 K239 Chunmoo launchers together with rocket ammunition, ammunition resupply vehicles, fire-direction command vehicles, training and long-term logistics support. Zagreb is acquiring several natures of guided rocket spanning short, medium and long-range missions, with engagement ranges running from roughly 30 kilometres out to about 300 kilometres depending on the round.

The programme is scheduled to run from 2026 to 2029, with deliveries of the full package expected within 24 to 36 months of contract effect and completion of the wider effort by 2030.

The command-and-control element is the part of the deal most likely to matter operationally. Croatia’s launchers will be tied together by the TOPAZ battlefield management system developed by Poland’s WB Group, the same fire-control architecture already used by Polish artillery units — including Poland’s own Homar-K batteries, which are built around the Chunmoo launcher. Choosing TOPAZ rather than a bespoke national solution puts Croatian rocket artillery on a digital fire-control standard already fielded on NATO’s eastern flank.

The system

The K239 Chunmoo is a wheeled multiple launch rocket system developed by Hanwha Aerospace for the Republic of Korea Army and fielded since 2015. Its defining feature is a twin-pod launcher that accepts different calibres without hardware modification: a pod of 20 unguided 130 mm rockets, a pod of six guided 239 mm rockets, or a pod of 227 mm rockets compatible with the ammunition family used by the U.S. M270 and M142 HIMARS. Longer-range guided rounds extend the system’s reach toward 300 kilometres.

That pod flexibility is the commercial argument Hanwha has made to European buyers. A single launcher vehicle can be loaded for suppression of an area target on one mission and for a precision strike deep behind the line of contact on the next, without a separate fleet for each task.

A South Korean pattern in Europe

Croatia is the third European customer for the Chunmoo after Poland, which ordered the system in 2022 under its Homar-K programme, and Romania, which signed in 2024. All three followed a similar path: a requirement for rocket artillery that outgrew what was available quickly from U.S. or Western European production lines, and a South Korean offer that combined short delivery timelines with local industrial participation.

Croatian officials had weighed additional M142 HIMARS launchers against the Chunmoo before settling on the South Korean system, according to reporting on the selection. Zagreb already operates a small HIMARS capability, and the decision to add a second rocket artillery type — rather than deepen the first — points to delivery schedule and unit cost as the deciding factors rather than pure commonality.

Regional context

The purchase lands in a Western Balkans security environment where several states are simultaneously re-equipping. Serbia has expanded its own long-range rocket and air-defence inventories in recent years, and Croatian officials have consistently framed capability decisions with reference to the regional balance as well as NATO force goals. Analysts in the region have described the Chunmoo signature as evidence of an accelerating arms cycle in the Balkans rather than an isolated procurement.

For Croatia, the strategic case is narrower and more concrete. A brigade-level rocket artillery capability with 300-kilometre reach gives Zagreb an organic deep-fires option it has never previously fielded, and one that plugs into NATO targeting through a command system already in allied service. It also commits the Croatian Armed Forces to a South Korean logistics chain for the next decade — the trade-off every European buyer of Korean land systems has accepted in exchange for delivery dates that Western suppliers have struggled to match.

Sources

• Government of the Republic of Croatia, contract signing statement, 10 September 2026
• Defence Industry Europe, “Hanwha Aerospace secures €411.8 million Croatian order for 18 Chunmoo launchers and guided rockets,” 11 September 2026
• European Security & Defence, “Hanwha Aerospace to Supply Chunmoo MRLS to Croatia,” September 2026
• Balkan Insight, “Croatia Buys South Korean Rocket Launchers as Regional Arms Race Accelerates,” 10 September 2026
• Army Recognition, “Croatia to buy 18 K239 Chunmoo rocket launchers from South Korea,” September 2026