KAI Marineon attack version for RoK Marine Corps
At the end of October 2022, South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA) signed a contract with Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) to develop an attack helicopter for the Republic of Korea Marine Corps (RoKMC) based on the KAI MUH-1 Marineon amphibious helicopter.
The Marineon is a naval version of the KUH-1 Surion, operating with the RoK Army, which KAI developed together with Eurocopter, with the SA330 Puma as a starting point.
After a year long study, DAPA concluded that the most cost effective procurement would be acquiring a local product and discarded the offers from four foreign bidding companies. These were Bell Textron (AH-1Z Viper), Boeing (AH-64E Apache Guardian), Turkish Aerospace (T-129 Atak) and Lockheed Martin-Sikorsky (S-70i). KAI displayed an attack version of the Marineon, then named XMUH-1, at the 2021 ADEX exhibition held at Seoul-Sinchonri/Seongnam.
KAI will make three prototypes of the new version, now dubbed MAH (Marine Attack Helicopter) and will use weapon components developed for the KAI LAH, including a 20 mm Gatling gun and launchers for guided missiles. System developement is expected to be completed in the second half of the 2020s and an order for about twenty MAH helicopters is expected.
Photo (just illustrative) via navalnews.com