Offers for South Korea

Boeing, Lockheed Martin and EADS have submitted tenders to supply 60 multi-role fighter for the Air Force in South Korea. Today the deadline for submission of tenders, and the winner will be chosen in October. The estimated contract value is 8.3 trillion won (about $ 7 billion).


According to a South Korean military procurement agency DAPA, Boeing proposed the F-15SE, a Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. The third bidder is the Eurofighter is EADS. Everyone will seek its third victory in a tender for the successors of F-4 and F-5. Seoul bought in advance from Boeing, in two rounds, 61 F-15K. Deliveries of the last of them being.

Although Seoul has not revealed details of tactical-technical requirements, the existing members of the government's statements indicate that the preferred machine is done in stealth technology, which rewards the F-35A. For this reason, was not without scandal, when DAPA asked Lockheed Martin to apologize for publishing the information already made ​​the choice of the manufacturer's fighter.


The fact is that in this auction are American favorites, traditional suppliers of arms to the Republic of Korea and Japan, moreover, dependent on guarantees of political and military assistance Washington. Competitive F-15SE is also a good chance, however, both because of its similarity to those already used in the construction of fighters, as well as the use of technical solutions to reduce radar reflection surface and the emission of electromagnetic and thermal energy.

Similar properties have also Eurofighter, but the chances of this design - taking into account the political choice of a few years ago at the expense of the F-15K Rafale quoted above - are in fact small.


Also in October we should know the supplier of 36 attack helicopters, the program with a planned budget of 1.8 trillion won. According to the DAPA, the game remained the Boeing AH-64D Block III Eurocopter EC-665 Tiger and Turkish T-129, offered in association with the Italian part of AgustaWestland. This means that the tender was eliminated Bell AH-1W Super Cobra.