Norway Chooses U.S. HIMARS and South Korea’s Chunmoo Over German Rocket Launcher System.

Norway has removed KNDS Deutschland’s EuroPULS from its Long Range Precision Firing Systems competition, leaving U.S. HIMARS and South Korea’s Chunmoo as the remaining contenders. The move reshapes a major NATO procurement and adds tension to the German-Norwegian defense partnership.

According to the German defense outlet Hartpunkt, on 21 November 2025, Norway has already removed KNDS Deutschland’s EuroPULS from its rocket artillery competition, leaving U.S. and South Korean systems as the remaining options for Oslo’s Long Range Precision Firing Systems program. The decision comes at the very moment Berlin and Oslo are celebrating their deepening partnership on 212CD submarines and Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks, with the first Leopard 2A8s handed over this week at KNDS in Munich. What was meant to be the next flagship of a European deep fires architecture has instead become a visible stress point inside that partnership.
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Norway is weighing U.S. HIMARS/GMARS and South Korea's K239 Chunmoo after dropping EuroPULS, a decision that could reshape NATO's long-range strike posture in the High North and strain Oslo's defense ties with Germany (Picture source: Deutch MoD).

Speaking at the Leopard ceremony, German defense minister Boris Pistorius publicly urged Norway to join a European rocket artillery cluster around EuroPULS and the Bundeswehr’s future MARS 3. “We see how important a modern and resilient rocket artillery cluster is,” he said, adding that a common solution “would be a win for both sides, for interoperability, for security of supply and for a robust European capability in a field where requirements will only increase.” Yet Hartpunkt reports that Oslo had already excluded KNDS in the summer, likely on cost and delivery grounds, even if officials will not publicly confirm the reasoning.

On the U.S. side, Norway has requested 16 M142 HIMARS launchers via a Foreign Military Sales package worth roughly 580 million dollars, along with Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System ammunition. HIMARS carries a single pod with six 227 mm GMLRS rockets or one ATACMS or future PrSM pod, combining high mobility on an FMTV 6x6 chassis with air-transportability and the kind of “shoot, relocate, shoot again” profile that has become synonymous with survivability in Ukraine. Standard GMLRS rounds provide engagement out to about 70–80 km, while the Extended-Range GMLRS roughly doubles that distance to 150 km. The U.S. Army’s new Precision Strike Missile family pushes the envelope further, with Increment 2 designed to hit moving land and maritime targets at well over 500 km, turning HIMARS and its successors into genuine theater-level strike assets.

GMARS, co-developed by Rheinmetall and Lockheed Martin, is effectively the heavyweight complement to HIMARS. Mounted on the Rheinmetall HX 8x8 truck, the launcher carries two MLRS pods and can fire up to 12 GMLRS/ER rockets, four PrSMs, or two ATACMS from a platform under 40 tons, with a quoted range envelope of more than 400 km for future munitions. The HX chassis offers central tire inflation, armored cabs, and high commonality with other NATO logistics fleets, while the fire-control system remains fully aligned with the HIMARS/M270 ecosystem. For Norway, GMARS would mean fewer launchers delivering more effect, but also a deeper lock-in to U.S. export decisions on ER GMLRS and PrSM, an issue already visible in reported U.S. reluctance to clear Norwegian requests for these rounds.

Hanwha’s K239 Chunmoo offers a different path. The launcher mounts two pods that can mix rocket and missile types: each pod can carry six 239 mm CGR-080 guided rockets with an 80 km range or a single 600 mm CTM-290 tactical ballistic missile with a range of about 290 km. Both the rockets and CTM-290 use GPS/INS guidance and are advertised with single-digit meter accuracy, providing deep precision fires comparable to ATACMS but in a package that Seoul is willing to localize. In Poland’s Homar-K variant, Chunmoo is already being integrated on Jelcz 8x8 trucks with national fire-control systems, demonstrating that Hanwha will adapt the system to national C2 rather than insisting on a closed architecture.

For Norway, Chunmoo would sit alongside the K9 VIDAR 155 mm self-propelled howitzers and K10 resupply vehicles already delivered by Hanwha, creating a unified Korean-supplied artillery ecosystem from tube to rocket. Hanwha has further signaled its intent by signing a memorandum with Norwegian company Akkodis Nordics to develop a dedicated Chunmoo simulator tailored to Norwegian requirements, a move clearly framed as part of the LRPFS bid. In industrial terms, Seoul is offering Oslo something close to what Berlin promised with EuroPULS: local production, tailored training, and a long-term role in a growing European support network for Korean artillery systems.

The strategic irony is that EuroPULS is, on paper, the most “sovereign” European launcher in the competition. Based on Elbit’s PULS, the EuroPULS/MARS 3 configuration can fire a full menu of 122 and 160 mm Accular rockets, Extra rockets out to 150 km, and Predator Hawk quasi-ballistic missiles to 300 km, all with advertised accuracy around 10 m. Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark have already committed to the system, and Diehl Defence is preparing European production lines for key munitions to break dependence on U.S. or Israeli stockpiles. Recent tests have gone further, with KNDS, Elbit, and Kongsberg successfully launching Norway’s Naval Strike Missile from MARS 3, turning EuroPULS into a dual-role coastal defense and deep-strike launcher with NSM ranges beyond 250 km.

EuroPULS was also widely viewed as a natural land platform for the future Norwegian-German 3SM Tyrfing very-long-range anti-ship missile project, which aims for 800–1000 km class range in the 2030s. If Oslo walks away from EuroPULS, the political case for integrating Tyrfing onto land launchers weakens, and Berlin’s ambition to anchor a uniquely European deep fires ecosystem loses a key Nordic pillar. That explains the unusually open signaling from German officials and the visible discomfort in Berlin at the prospect of a Korean win.

Inside Norway, the choice is contested. Dagens Næringsliv reports that Kongsberg and industrial group Aker have written to the prime minister and key ministers urging a EuroPULS buy, arguing that Norwegian-built launchers, missiles, and fire-control solutions would keep much more value inside the national defense industry. At the same time, Hartpunkt notes that rocket artillery is absent from the current draft defense budget, with the issue expected to resurface only when the revised long-term defense plan, “The Norwegian Defence Pledge,” is fully implemented. That plan foresees a historic increase of roughly 600 billion Norwegian kroner in defense spending between 2025 and 2036 to reinforce NATO’s northern flank, but it does not predetermine which deep-fires system will be chosen.

For NATO, Norway’s decision is more than another procurement story. A HIMARS/GMARS choice would tighten a U.S.-centric “HIMARS belt” running from the Baltic to the High North, simplifying logistics but deepening dependence on Washington’s export timelines. A Chunmoo victory would signal that an Asian supplier can anchor a major segment of NATO’s deep-fires architecture while still plugging into alliance command networks and targeting data. A late reversal toward EuroPULS would show that Europe is finally willing to pay for sovereign launcher and missile chains, even if they arrive slower and cost more.

In the end, Oslo is not just buying trucks and pods; it is selecting which political community will underwrite its ability to strike hundreds of kilometers into contested territory in the Barents and Baltic theaters. Whatever Norway chooses, the decision will echo far beyond its artillery regiments, shaping how NATO’s northern defenses balance U.S. dominance, Asian industrial power, and Europe’s own ambition to control its deep-fires strategy for the next decade.

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.