Calibre interview: Simon Humphrey, VP at Hanwha UK

The UK released its user requirements for a programme called Mobile Fires Platform (MFP) in 2020 with the goal of replacing the 155 mm AS90 howitzers that it had in service. At that time, Hanwha’s K9 Thunder self-propelled howitzer was gaining traction as an export success, with orders from Estonia, Finland, Norway, and Turkey. The company confidently pitched the newest variant of the platform, the K9A2, for the MFP programme, forming Hanwha UK which established a team with some of the UK’s major defence companies including Lockheed Martin UK, Pearson Engineering and Leonardo UK. This programme was the sole focus of Hanwha UK, so when the MFP selection of the Boxer RCH155 was unexpectedly announced without competition in April 2024, the company had to adjust its focus. Calibre Defence met with Simon Humphrey, the vice president of the Land Systems Division of Hanwha UK, to learn more about the company’s current path, and the future of artillery. 

Hanwha UK – breadth and depth 

“We are certainly not reducing our ambitions for the UK. It is an important market, one that can deliver mutual benefit and deliver great capabilities into the hands of soldiers,” Simon explained on a call in early April. The focus now is on broadening the company’s scope of offering to the UK. “Hanwha UK approached the British MoD quite narrowly because it was set on the K9 for MFP. In the last 12-18 months we have developed much more of a message about breadth, looking at things like rocket systems, IFVs, energetics production, air defence, and UGVs.” Hanwha has a proven track record in all of these elements, and each of them has a capability pathway. This means something quite specific for the South Korean forces that are Hanwha’s primary customer. 

“South Korea has to have systems that are upgraded from the frontline very quickly. The companies there are charged with developing systems that are future-proof and can be upgraded as and when required. Chunmoo is an example, it has a suite of missiles that are constantly evolving and improving,” Simon explained. This ethos can be seen in the K9 as well, which is designed to be operated by a conscript force and so is a simplified system requiring a relatively low training burden. And yet, “Hanwha has a capability pathway for the K9 that takes it through to a fully automated platform,” Simon said. 

The company’s approach is to emphasise its “multi-domestic” capabilities, which has proven successful in both Poland and Australia. “In Australia for example, we have won the Huntsman howitzer, which is based on the K9 and Redback IFV. Hanwha has invested $150 mln dollars to build a factory outside of Melbourne to meet the needs of these projects,” Simon said. Australia is set to build 28 of the AS9 Huntsman howitzers domestically, as well as 129 of the AS21 Redback IFVs, most of which will be built at the H-ACE factory in Geelong. The Hanwha UK proposal for MFP included similar benefits. 

In Poland, Hanwha is already providing 364 K9s and 290 Chunmoo multiple-rocket launchers in response to the country’s ambitious modernisation and expansion of its deep and close fires capabilities. This includes the localised manufacturing of the Polonized Chunmoo launchers mounted on the Jelcz 8×8 truck chassis, and a new JV to build missiles domestically. “That’s the model. We will come to your country and bring our technology, providing investment and benefit to the domestic economy,” Simon added, further explaining that it is not a company that just exports from its home territory, as many competitors do. This is a driving force behind much of the UK’s current land procurements, with almost every programme requiring a significant element of domestic production and supply chain involvement. 

Even so, things have not been straightforward for Hanwha UK. “It has proven difficult to break in, there is only finite capacity to deal with the existing suppliers. As a new potential supplier, you are pushing against the current. But there are more and more people who recognise that we [the UK] can’t keep doing the things that we have been.” Like many companies with their sights set on the British MoD, the much-delayed strategic defence review, had slowed conversations down. Now published, the Labour Government has set the goal of producing six new ammunition factories, which may pave the way for new companies to set up shop, including Hanwha UK. “Energetics in particular is an area of focus for us,” Simon remarked, as Hanwha has a proven pedigree in this space. 

Munitions production in the UK has historically been dominated by BAE Systems, inheriting as it did, the country’s state-owned munitions factories in the early 1990s. However, as the UK tried to increase production in support of Ukraine, there was a lack of capacity across its defence industry. So, there may be scope for additional British energetics production, allowing more ammunition to be produced. 

Fighting the guns and the future of artillery 

There is a significant shift occurring in the world of artillery that relates primarily to the size of the gun crew. Historically, a wartime crew strength for a close support gun would be upwards of eight or ten personnel. Some British guns in the Gulf War had crews of 13, such was the demand created by unpacking and moving ammunition, as well as firing the gun consistently for long periods of time. When not fighting the gun, these crews were necessary for preparing gun hides, providing a chemical and air sentry, as well as close defence of the gun, maintenance, and to provide a reserve that would enable some of the crew to rest and recuperate. Under the current paradigm, however, there is an inexorable drive towards reducing crew size and automating the ammunition loading process in particular. This is a topic that Simon provided an interesting analysis on. He spent 36 years in the British Army, commanding units from troop to brigade level within the Royal Artillery, before leaving the Army and joining Hanwha. 

“You don’t operate artillery, you fight artillery. There is a risk that people think you just operate a platform, but it is much much more than that. Artillery commanders want choice of employment. The choice to employ those assets that they have under their command in the broadest possible fashion. Whether that is driving through rubble in streets, operating on cresting hills, or across fields. If at any point you struggle to deploy the guns to those places, then you start to struggle as a commander,” he explained. There are a number of elements to unpack within this short statement around artillery procurement. Consider, for example, the growing number of truck-mounted systems. At equal weights, a wheeled vehicle will have lower trafficability (the ability to move across different terrain) than a tracked vehicle. It will also have a reduced tractive force, which translates to the ability to push through rubble, walls, and obstacles. It follows that wheeled vehicles will ultimately encounter more terrain that they cannot overcome than a tracked equivalent. This could impact the commander’s choice in terms of when and how to employ that artillery. 

“They are a support asset to somebody else doing something difficult. Artillery doesn’t choose when it is used, in good weather or bad, it responds when the people who need it call for it. If you end up with a system in your army that doesn’t allow you to do that, then you are limiting what artillery can bring to the battlefield,” Simon continued. And this ties in with the reduction in crew numbers too. But first, I’ll let Simon explain how an artillery system works: 

“We risk just focusing on the gun rather than the artillery system.” There are five key components to the artillery system, Simon explained: 

• Target acquisition 
• Having an effector that travels to the right point on the battlefield. Guided rounds are good, but EW is having an impact, so you need something at the most basic level. 
• A fire control system allowing you to work out how to elevate the barrel etc and pass information. 
• The gun, which people tend to focus on. Including the crew and operation of the platform. 
• Logistics, if you can’t service the gun, then it becomes a lump of heavy metal.

Artillery is a system.  If you can only carry 20 rounds, and have a crew of two then fatigue increases and you cannot fight that artillery as a system.” The impact of reducing crew size or being unable to rotate artillery crews has been long known, and a recent RUSI paper highlighted the impact on gun crews of preparing gun hides and defensive positions. Preparing positions can take hours, and is often done without combat engineering assets. Moreover, a crew might be required to fight the gun at the same time as preparing its fighting positions. The norm is also for guns to be fought dispersed within a manoeuvre area, rather than concentrated on a single gun line. 

“If you can only carry 20 rounds, and have a crew of 2 then fatigue increases and you cannot fight that artillery as a system.”

“We used to have a citadel feel across a grid square,” Simon said, referring to his own experience as a commander of artillery. “But now we are telling detachment commanders that they need to go and operate their platform independently, pick up ammunition, find and prepare hides, and respond to calls for fire. So, I think this is becoming more like operating a tank, and having two people in a crew seems like a big ask.” This is certainly an element worth focusing on. For example, Russia will use dedicated teams with Lancet loitering munitions to wait and watch an area that is known to house a Ukrainian howitzer for days, just to catch the gun when it eventually moves. At the same time, both sides are deliberately targeting the logistics to and from the frontline, creating an area of very high risk up to 30 km into the rear of the forward fighting positions. The goal is often to isolate those positions, making them harder to support and sustain. All of this must place a very high level of stress upon a crew, made worse by the reduced size and opportunity for rotation. 

Of course, the future appears to only hold further reductions in crew size, led to some extent by Hanwha in the tube artillery domain. “Hanwha has a capability pathway for the K9 that takes it through to a fully automated platform. The A2 will automate the turret and reduce the crew to three and the A3 will have two crewed platforms and two tethered but autonomous platforms,” Simon explained. In principle, this approach makes a lot of sense. It enables a force to increase or maintain its weight of fire without necessarily having to increase the size of its combat force. The US Army is pursuing a similar result with rocket artillery and autonomous launchers. 

“Operating a gun remains a pretty human activity, it fits into that category of dirty, dangerous. Guns routinely don’t do what you expect them to. Firing a high charge shell imparts incredible forces onto a platform, so reversionary methods are still necessary. So, how quickly can we take over again and restore those types of capability? It remains a human endeavour. It’s really difficult to automate everything, and when something goes wrong, who fixes it?” Simon cautioned. 

“As we transition as a company, we really have to work this through and make sure that the platform remains survivable and delivers lethality. There’s almost a sense, as we talk about uncrewed platforms, that because the vehicle doesn’t have a person in, we don’t need to protect it as well. This is something I would challenge as an idea, because we won’t have enough in terms of platforms to reduce their survivability. We can’t afford to treat guns as though they are expendable.”

Calibre comment

“We can’t afford to treat guns as though they are expendable.”

Simon’s closing comment is an important one to grapple with and understand. Although European defence budgets are increasing, there are large capability gaps that need to be filled, from the industrial side through to ammunition, platforms, and personnel. Autonomous platforms and reduced crew sizes can only address some elements of this puzzle while creating other challenges elsewhere. Furthermore, the cost of these platforms is unlikely to be so low that they can be seen as an expendable asset. Even loitering munitions – literally designed to be expendable – can cost tens of thousands per unit. When companies have to sustain large footprints on infrequent and small orders, they cannot afford to reduce costs to a level where autonomous platforms could be considered expendable. This means that all of the challenges of fighting artillery remain, from preparing hides, to supplying ammunition, and finding targets. Humans will remain central, the number of guns will always be lower than a commander would like, and they will always have to be protected and carefully employed. 

By Sam Cranny-Evans, published on 26th June, 2025. The featured image at the top of the article shows a K9 Thunder in service with Poland during a live fire demonstration in 2023. Credit: Staff Sgt. Matthew Foster, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.