At the recent EDEX 2025 event in Cairo the Egyptian Army displayed a Hanwha K9 artillery battery complete with support vehicles, reports Bob Morrison.
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First, by way of explanation: It is no great secret that I arrived in the world of defence journalism through my interest in building scale models of military vehicles ~ a relatively inexpensive hobby I took up mostly to keep me out of the pub and at home following the arrival of my firstborn ~ and although I spent twenty years editing the former COMBAT & SURVIVAL Magazine my first brief Editor appointment was actually at AIRFIX Magazine. Unfortunately a painful spinal injury caused by my car being heavily shunted from the rear forced me to give up scale modelling many years ago, after winning three Bronze and Silver Medals at the prestigious Model Engineering Exhibition in Wembley and also achieving many IPMS military vehicle and diorama class wins over several years in competitions at home and abroad, but the hobby still interests me ~ hence my decision to take these walk-round shots of Egypt’s K9 Family artillery vehicles for fellow modellers who read JOINT-FORCES.
Both my colleague Carl and myself have photographed Estonian, Norwegian and Polish in-service versions of Hanwha’s K9 SPH (Self-Propelled Howitzer) but the South Korean company’s K10 ARV (Ammunition Resupply Vehicle) is rarer to find and until Cairo I had not even seen a K-11 FCV (Fire Control Vehicle) command post. Knowing that both 1:35 and 1:48 scale models of the K9 are easy to source and realising that skilled modellers with scratch-building skills should not find it too difficult to convert an SPH to either ARV or FDCV configuration, I ensured that I snapped all four sides of each three vehicle types.
These photos were taken on different days and at different times of day to try to beat the very low December sun (and to avoid both clutter and those phone camera selfie-shooters who invariably stroll into the viewfinder at expos) so be aware the K9 shots are not all of the same vehicle. However I didn’t spot any appreciable differences between the six howitzers and hopefully the shots will be of use to some modellers.
The Egyptian Armed Forces ordered an updated version of the K9 SPH, designated K9A1EGY, plus both K10 and K11 support vehicles; the original February 2022 order was reported as being for 200 howitzers and 100 support vehicle, though later Korean media reports stated final totals were 216 SPH plus 39 ARV and 51 FCV. At EDEX 2025 a battery of six howitzers plus a resupply vehicle and a control vehicle were displayed in part of the car park outside the main exhibition halls. The bulk of the K9 Family production contract is being undertaken in Egypt by Military Factory 200, using locally produced power trains, but an initial small batch was manufactured in South Korea and I suspect it might have been some of these which were displayed at EDEX as stencilling was in English rather than Arabic.
- For more reading on the K9 Family on JOINT-FORCES use tag/k9-sph.
- When I get a little more time I’ll try to add some specification details for the Egyptian variants.
- Hanwha states in press releases that the K9 Family was ordered by the Egyptian Navy, but I suspect this to be a translation error as generally artillery falls under Egyptian Army control.
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