Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) had signed a contract with South Korea’s Protection Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) to develop the helicopter at a price of USD308.65 million (KRW438.40 billion ). three prototypes will probably be produced and the contract is to be executed inside 46 months. The assault helicopter proposed by KAI globally stored the design of the Surion household: MUH-1 Marineon amphibious helicopter. It has a 96 % half commonality with the Surion. In April 2021, DAPA authorised a mission to develop an assault model of the Marineon as it’s a “confirmed mild armed helicopter (LAH)”.
DAPA concluded a year-long examine analysing gives from 5 bidding firms: Bell Textron (AH-1Z Viper), Boeing (AH-64E Apache Guardian), Turkish Aerospace (T-129 Atak), Lockheed Martin-Sikorsky (S-70i), and Korean Aerospace Industries or KAI (Surion Marine Assault Helicopter).After the year-long examine, DAPA’s Protection Company of Expertise and High quality (DTaQ) concluded that procuring a domestically developed platform able to working from the Republic of Korea Navy’s amphibious assault ships can be more economical than buying a foreign-made one. It should “present air fireplace assist for floor fight models between the ultimate operations.
Commercial
The Surion Marine assault helicopter is envisaged to be fitted with the nose-mounted electro-optical/infrared concentrating on and designation system primarily developed by Hanwha Techniques for the South Korean Military’s future mild assault helicopter. The crew would obtain head-mounted shows and evening imaginative and prescient goggles. The weapons bundle features a 20 mm Gatling gun with 1,400 rounds, 2.75 inch rocket pods, two quad-launchers for antitank guided missile and two dual-launchers for air-to-air missile. KAI added a set of weapons permitting the chopper to carry out two primary missions, together with from the ROK Navy Dokdo-class LPHs: air assault assist and anti-tank assault.
The Republic of Korea Marine Corps (ROKMC) has no plane of its personal, thus counting on aerial assist from the Republic of Korea Military and Navy. On June 4, 2012, Ministry of Nationwide Protection confirmed a plan to distribute 32 amphibious cellular helicopters to ROKMC. The ROKMC scheduled to activate an aviation group between 2017 and 2020 with 2 amphibious cellular helicopter battalions and 1 assault helicopter battalion with Colonel in chief. In preparation for the group’s launch, the Marine Corps obtained two models of the MUH-1 Marineone, a variant of the KUH-1 Surion helicopter, in 2017, and plans to obtain a complete of 28 models by 2023.
