Armored vehicle development rarely moves quickly without wasting millions of dollars. Defense contractors love starting from scratch on paper, burning through budgets, and delivering prototypes a decade too late. That is why the debut at the DVD exhibition caught military analysts off guard.
Hanwha Aerospace and Lockheed Martin UK didn't build a new vehicle from the ground up. Instead, they took a proven tracked chassis and mated it with an orphaned British turret system. The result is a heavy infantry fighting vehicle equipped with a 40mm cannon and integrated drone defense, built to survive the exact type of warfare currently chewing up armor in modern conflicts.
If you want to understand where military procurement is heading, you need to look at how this machine was actually put together.
Salvaging Abandoned Hardware for Modern Warfare
The turret sitting on top of Hanwha’s AS21 Redback hull is not a brand-new invention. It uses hardware originally engineered for Britain's Warrior Capability Sustainment Programme—a modernization effort that suffered extensive delays before being ultimately canceled.
Millions of dollars in research, development, and testing went into that turret. Letting it sit on a shelf would have been a waste. Lockheed Martin UK retained the design and decided to mount it onto the Redback, a tracked chassis that already won major export traction, including a massive order for the Australian Army.
By marrying South Korean automotive manufacturing muscle with British turret engineering, the two defense giants created a low-risk option for NATO members. Armies don't have ten years to wait for clean-sheet vehicle designs. They need platforms right now that can handle immediate threats.
Solving the Drone Problem on the Move
Spotting an enemy main battle tank used to be the primary tactical headache for armored columns. Today, cheap first-person view drones and loitering munitions pose a far deadlier hazard. Traditional infantry fighting vehicles are sitting ducks against airborne threats unless they have dedicated support.
This new configuration changes that dynamic by integrating Lockheed's SkyKeeper command-and-control software directly into the turret architecture. This marks the first time SkyKeeper has been embedded right into a turret system of this type.
The 40mm cannon fires specialized cased telescoped ammunition capable of doing double duty. It can shred light armor or suppress infantry positions with traditional rounds, but it can also fire airburst munitions. That turns the vehicle into a mobile umbrella against drone swarms. Mechanized squads finally get their own close-in air defense without needing to wait for a separate air defense vehicle to catch up.
Why Export Rules Matter Here
Building a capable prototype is only half the battle. Selling it across international borders is where most joint ventures stall out.
Because Lockheed Martin UK holds the intellectual property rights for the turret and its associated software systems, export approvals are governed strictly by British regulations. This setup bypasses some of the tangled foreign supplier hurdles that typically plague multi-national military hardware.
For European nations and other global buyers looking to upgrade their mechanized brigades quickly, cutting through regulatory red tape is just as important as armor thickness or firepower. Buyers want plug-and-play capability. They want to purchase a vehicle, train their crews, and deploy it without getting dragged into years of diplomatic clearance talks.
The Reality of Collaborative Defense
We are watching a fundamental shift in how defense contractors approach manufacturing. The era of building bespoke, insanely expensive platforms exclusively for a single domestic military is coming to an end. Budgets are tight, threats evolve monthly, and supply chains are strained.
Hanwha provides the mobility, structural durability, and high-rate manufacturing capacity that few Western shipyards or vehicle plants can match. Lockheed brings sophisticated fire control and software integration.
Fleets that fail to adapt to multi-domain threats like autonomous drone swarms will find themselves obsolete before they ever roll off the assembly line. Expect more partnerships of this nature as legacy systems get stripped apart and repurposed into practical answers for modern battlefields.
