Spain must finalize its artillery modernization program by the end of this year, which will be managed by a joint venture created by Indra and EM&E companies involving large-scale plans to purchase artillery systems worth a total of 6.7 billion euros, of which the larger portion namely 4.516 billion euros will go toward tracked self-propelled howitzers, and another 2.219 billion euros for wheeled artillery systems.
When Spain first announced in July 2024 the number of howitzers it wanted to purchase to replace the M109, the total was 145, but now they're talking about a larger quantity 128 tracked and 86 wheeled artillery systems (excluding support vehicles), totaling 214 vehicles. And it seems that as of today, two clear and most likely candidates are emerging for both tracked and wheeled artillery systems, as reported by Infodefensa.
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Speaking of the former, the main contender here is South Korean company Hanwha with their bestselling K9 Thunder howitzer.
Although there's no 100% certainty that this particular howitzer will win the contract, it has an undeniable advantage in that Hanwha is usually very willing to agree to technology transfer and production localization for artillery systems, which is quite an advantageous benefit compared to one of its competitors in the form of Germany's PzH 2000 from Rheinmetall.
Spanish company Indra is interested in technology transfer and has already held a number of various meetings with defense companies from South Korea. After all, Hanwha is already supplying or will supply K9 howitzers to a number of European countries, including Poland, where there are now more South Korean howitzers than domestic Krabs, Estonia, Norway, Finland, and Romania, where Hanwha even agreed to build a factory from scratch.
So overall, it's not surprising that Spain will quite likely choose this wheeled howitzer, although the complete list of probable candidates hasnt been officially announced yet, and among the options is such an exotic variant as the NEMESIS howitzer, which is a reincarnation of the DONAR howitzer that nobody bought for 16 whole years and which was offered to Spain in 2024 by KNDS and GDELS Spanish subsidiary Santa Barbara Sistemas.
Regarding the wheeled howitzer, the Spanish will likely choose a solution based on a 10×10 truck developed within the partnership between Indra and Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles (RMMV).
Defense Express previously reported that Spain poured 0.7 billion euros into the dead sixth-generation FCAS fighter project while the French quarrel with the Germans.
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