Leaked: Hungary to buy kamikaze drones for €250 million?

hungary_kamikaze_drones_germany_rheinmetall

Screenshot from the video 'Multi Canister Launcher for Hero 400EC'.

According to the latest quarterly report from German company Rheinmetall, Hungary is well on the way to buying kamikaze drones from them for huge sums.

Hungary on the report of Rheinmetall

HTKA has noticed that Hungary is also on the list of countries that are negotiating potential arms sales agreements with Rheinmetall. According to Portfolio, German company Rheinmetall is perhaps the Hungarian government’s most important partner in the defence industry at the moment.

The company has started to set up several production facilities in Hungary where it plans to manufacture weapon systems, partly for the defence sector and partly for export.

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kamikaze suicide drones loitering munition

Screenshot from the video ‘Multi Canister Launcher for Hero 400EC’.

Quarterly report

Rheinmetall has recently published its quarterly report, in which it gives an account of potential arms sales agreements that are being seriously negotiated with governments in some partner countries.

The list includes Hungary where they mention that they see

potential revenue of around €250 million from the sale of what is commonly known as kamikaze/suicide drones (loitering munitions).

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Kamikaze drones

The essence of such weapons is that the drone uses some kind of intelligent target search system to locate the target, and after impact, the explosive charge built into the drone is activated and destroys the selected device or formation. In fact, it is more a kind of smart munition than a drone in the traditional sense.

According to 24.hu, the product family called HERO includes drones for small, medium, and long-range missions, with a total of five types of drones.

The weapon system can be coordinated and controlled even from Lynx infantry fighting vehicles, which the Hungarian government is already sure to procure.

It is not yet known what drones the government is interested in.

As Portfolio writes, the fact that the Hungarian government was included in the Rheinmetall report as a potentially interested party shows that there are serious discussions on the procurement of drones, but no final agreement has been reached.