South Korea Should Export Drone-Resilient Armored Formations

Dr. Ju Hyung Kim

Recent footage from Yemen should be taken seriously by South Korea’s defense industry.

In August, Houthi media released a video claiming that a Rajum multirotor drone dropped a munition on Saudi Arabia’s M1A2S Abrams tank near Marib. The ammunition appeared to hit the rear portion of the turret, after which the vehicle caught fire, followed by what seemed to be a secondary ammunition explosion. The Saudi authorities are not acknowledging the loss, and the extent of the damage cannot be independently corroborated. Nonetheless, the incident reinforces lessons that have been repeatedly proven in Ukraine: even sophisticatedly armored vehicles can be threatened by inexpensive drones that attack relatively less-protected upper surfaces.

From Tank Vulnerability to Formation-Level Survivability

For South Korea, this should not be just another warning about the vulnerability of tanks. It should instead alter how South Korean land weapons systems are configured and marketed in the Middle East.

To be sure, companies like Hyundai Rotem are already developing the K2 Middle East (K2ME), factoring in the regional requirements. The Middle Eastern K2, unveiled in March 2026, incorporates modifications for extreme heat and desert environments, which include improved cooling devices, a modified fuel tank, and electronic components adapted to high temperatures.

Improvements for the next stage should focus on drones.

South Korea should move further away from selling K2 tanks, K9 self-propelled howitzers, and other support vehicles primarily as individual platforms. Instead, the South Korean government and defense firms should develop standardized Armored Counter-UAS Packages so that Middle Eastern clients could purchase the entire drone-resilient formation.

Building Drone-Resilient K2 and K9 Formations

For a K2 battalion, the package should have four elements.

First, every tank should be equipped with a basic self-defense layer consisting of a drone alert sensor and electronic countermeasures. Detection of small UAVs should not remain exclusively the responsibility of air defense units several kilometers away. If quadcopters or FPV drones enter a nearby battlespace, tank crews should immediately receive warning.

South Korea is already heading in this direction domestically. In August, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) approved a K2 upgrade project running from 2028 to 2046, which includes an active protection system (APS), drones, IED jammers, and remotely operated weapons systems. The program is explicitly intended to increase survivability against threats such as anti-tank missiles and suicide drones.

Such architecture should be rapidly applied to export configurations, rather than purely treated as a future ROK Army requirement.

Second, South Korea should not assume that a vehicle-mounted jammer alone could solve the drone problem.

Electronic warfare is useful against UAVs that rely on weak command-and-control links and navigation links. However, it becomes less reliable vis-à-vis systems using autonomous terminal navigation, hardened communications, or other forms of control designed to operate in an electronically contested environment. Middle Eastern customers therefore need both soft-kill and hard-kill options.

Thus, a K2 export battalion should consequently include a mobile C-UAS vehicle—apart from tanks—that could detect and engage drones. Ideally, each battalion should possess vehicles that combine radar and electro-optical sensors with electronic warfare equipment, remotely controlled machine guns, or other low-cost interceptor options.

The ultimate objective should not be modifying all tanks into air-defense platforms. It is to create a protective bubble that moves together with the armored formation.

Third, South Korea should expand this concept to artillery.

This is particularly relevant to K9 howitzers that already have an important Middle Eastern foothold. Egypt’s $1.7 billion K9 projectincludes hundreds of K9 artillery systems, K10 ammunition resupply vehicles (ARVs), and K11 fire-direction control vehicles(FDCVs). Hanwha has intentionally advertised these systems as an “integrated K9 Package.”

The package should evolve into a K9+C-UAS package. K9’s mobility ensures substantial survivability against traditional counter-battery fire. Its redeployment occurs before the enemy can effectively respond.

However, a near-constantly operating drone makes such logic complex.

Artillery units that leave their firing positions can be tracked from the air. Above all, it is unnecessary for the enemy to destroy the K9 platform itself. Likewise, K10 ARVs, K11 FDCVs, ammunition transportation points, and maintenance assets can be attractive targets. Even if every howitzer survives, a battery’s sustained rate of fire could be reduced if an ammunition resupply vehicle is destroyed.

Therefore, the K9 export version should permanently include—and not include only temporarily when the tactical situation in the region deteriorates—a mobile C-UAS platoon organized around the artillery battalion.

Meanwhile, its sensors and countermeasures should be mounted on vehicles that could keep pace with a tracked artillery formation. Moreover, operatives should be integrated with the K11 FDCV architecture and make sure the drone alert swiftly reaches the entire battery.

Localization and Modular Counter-Drone Protection

Fourth, South Korea should include C-UAS requirements in localization agreements. Hanwha is already advancing with regional localization. In June 2026, Hanwha signed teaming agreement—which includes the local production of the K9—with UAE-based Generation 5 Holding.

Such an agreement offers an opportunity to turn C-UAS capacity into part of industrial cooperation, and not an aftermarket addition.

For example, South Korean firms could propose local assembly of drone-detection sensors, electronic warfare modules, and remote-control weapons systems alongside the production of the K2 and K9. If materialized, Middle Eastern clients would be able to modify software, frequency libraries, and sensor configurations in accordance with locally observable threats without redesigning entire vehicles.

The approach offers an additional advantage: it would enable counter-drone protection to evolve faster than the platforms it protects.

Tanks could be operated for decades, while the drone threat can change within a couple of months.

Hence, the protection architecture should be modular. Instead of being permanently integrated as a single configuration at the time of purchase, radar, electro-optic sensors, jammers, and interceptor systems should be independently replaceable.

South Korean defense exporters have succeeded partly because they have guaranteed quick delivery, affordable prices, local production, and customized configurations to customers. The next comparative advantage should be in formation-level survivability.

The most relevant question for Middle Eastern militaries is no longer simply whether the K2 can defeat another tank or whether the K9 can outrange enemy artillery. Instead, it should be whether a Korean armored battalion could continue to conduct combat even after hundreds of inexpensive hostile drones hover above.

Now, South Korea should design its export package accordingly.

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