SEOUL — South Korea is making a multibillion-dollar bet on one of the world’s most capable submarine-hunting helicopters, approving the purchase of around 20 additional MH-60R Seahawks just months after the first aircraft of the type officially entered frontline service.
The Defense Acquisition Program Administration said Tuesday that its Defense Project Promotion Committee approved the ₩3.24 trillion ($2.4 billion) Maritime Operation Helicopter-II program, which will acquire additional U.S.-built MH-60Rs through 2032.
The helicopters will replace South Korea’s aging Lynx maritime helicopters aboard destroyers and frigates and significantly expand the Navy’s ability to detect, track and attack submarines far from the Korean coastline.
But this is about more than replacing old aircraft.
It comes as Seoul increasingly views the underwater domain as one of the most important fronts in its military competition with North Korea.
Seoul chose the MH-60R after testing and negotiations
DAPA said the latest decision followed purchase evaluations and negotiations before the committee gave final approval to acquire Lockheed Martin’s MH-60R Seahawk through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales system.
The project officially runs from 2025 through 2032.
While Korean authorities are describing the final quantity as “around 20,” Washington had previously cleared a potentially larger package.
In May, the U.S. State Department approved a possible Foreign Military Sale to South Korea involving 24 MH-60R helicopters, 24 airborne low-frequency sonar systems and associated equipment with an estimated ceiling value of $3 billion.
That U.S. authorization represented the maximum potential package, not a completed purchase contract.
Tuesday’s Korean approval therefore provides the clearer picture of what Seoul currently intends to spend: around 20 additional aircraft under a ₩3.24 trillion program.
Korea already bought 12 Seahawks — and they’re only just entering service
This will not be South Korea’s first encounter with the MH-60R.
Seoul selected the aircraft in December 2020 and committed about ₩960 billion to acquire 12 Seahawks through the U.S. government.
The first aircraft arrived in South Korea in 2025, and the Navy formally placed its first two MH-60Rs into operational service on April 1, 2026, at the 62nd Maritime Air Squadron in Jinhae.
The remaining helicopters from that original 12-aircraft purchase are being introduced in phases.
That means South Korea has decided to dramatically expand the fleet before its original dozen have even accumulated years of operational experience.
It is a powerful indication of how important Seoul now considers airborne anti-submarine warfare.
What makes the MH-60R dangerous to a submarine?
The Seahawk is effectively a flying sensor-and-weapons platform designed to find targets that are intentionally trying not to be found.
It can use dipping sonar, lowered into the water from the hovering helicopter, as well as expendable sonobuoys spread across a wider search area to listen for and track submarines.
Its other systems include maritime-search radar, electro-optical and infrared sensors and electronic-support equipment.
Once a submarine is located, the aircraft can attack it with Mk-54 lightweight torpedoes.
For surface targets, the helicopter can carry Hellfire missiles, while machine guns can be used against smaller threats. South Korea has also been working to integrate its domestically produced Cheongsangeo lightweight torpedo with the aircraft.
With auxiliary fuel tanks, DAPA says the helicopter can remain airborne for more than four hours.
Its maximum speed is about 180 knots, or 333 kilometers per hour.
Those capabilities allow a warship to search well beyond the reach of its own hull-mounted sensors.
Instead of waiting for a submarine to approach the fleet, a Seahawk can race ahead of a destroyer or frigate and begin searching a much larger area.
And Korea isn’t relying on helicopters alone
The Seahawks form one part of a much wider anti-submarine modernization program.
South Korea has also introduced six Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, giving the Navy a long-range platform capable of sweeping broad areas of ocean for submarines and surface vessels.
DAPA has explicitly described the MH-60R and P-8A as key elements of the Navy’s modern maritime aviation force.
The two platforms perform complementary roles.
P-8 aircraft can search huge stretches of ocean from high altitude and deploy sensors over long distances, while shipborne helicopters can operate directly from destroyers and frigates and react quickly when a possible submarine contact is detected.
USNI News noted when the MH-60Rs entered Korean service in April that they were joining Seoul’s broader buildup of submarine-hunting capabilities alongside patrol aircraft and its existing helicopter fleet.
The real target is an aging Lynx fleet
The new Seahawks will also solve an increasingly unavoidable problem for the South Korean Navy.
Many of its Lynx and Super Lynx maritime helicopters date from the 1990s.
Those aircraft have served as South Korea’s shipborne submarine hunters for decades, but maintaining older airframes becomes progressively more difficult and expensive as equipment ages.
The Navy also operates eight AW159 Wildcats, introduced from 2016, which are themselves descendants of the Lynx family.
The newly approved MH-60R purchase is specifically intended to replace aging Lynx helicopters assigned to Korean destroyers and frigates.
That means the Seahawk is increasingly positioned to become one of the core airborne anti-submarine platforms aboard South Korea’s major surface combatants.
Why North Korea changes the equation
That modernization would matter even without Pyongyang.
With North Korea, it becomes far more urgent.
North Korea possesses a large fleet of conventional and midget submarines, although many are based on old designs and vary widely in capability.
More important strategically is Pyongyang’s continuing pursuit of submarines capable of carrying nuclear-armed ballistic or cruise missiles.
Such weapons create a particularly difficult defense problem because a missile-launching submarine could theoretically move away from known land-based launch sites and attack from an unexpected direction.
USNI reported earlier this year that North Korea’s expanding submarine and long-range strike programs are among the factors driving Seoul’s investment in new anti-submarine aircraft.
South Korea is responding on both sides of the underwater contest.
In May, Seoul announced that it aims to launch its own first nuclear-powered submarine by the mid-2030s, with officials explicitly linking the project to North Korea’s submarine-launched nuclear and missile threats.
The new Seahawks therefore fit into a broader transformation of South Korea’s naval strategy.
The numbers reveal how quickly the strategy is changing
Consider the timeline.
South Korea chose its first 12 MH-60Rs in 2020.
The first pair only became operational in April 2026.
Washington then authorized a potential 24-aircraft follow-on package in May.
And by September, Seoul had formally approved a ₩3.24 trillion program for around 20 additional aircraft through 2032.
That is a remarkably rapid escalation in commitment to a single helicopter type.
If the planned fleet is delivered broadly as announced, the MH-60R will go from being a brand-new capability in South Korean service to one of its most important maritime aviation assets within several years.
Don’t divide ₩3.24 trillion by the number of helicopters
There is also an important financial caveat.
The ₩3.24 trillion project value should not simply be divided by the number of helicopters and described as the “price” of each MH-60R.
Foreign Military Sales packages can include much more than airframes: sensors, engines, spare parts, training, technical support, weapons-related equipment and other logistics.
The earlier U.S. authorization for up to 24 aircraft, for example, included sonar systems and numerous supporting components.
The final Korean program budget therefore represents the broader acquisition project, rather than a straightforward sticker price for the helicopters themselves.
A bigger submarine hunt is taking shape
For South Korea, replacing its Lynx fleet would already justify a major procurement.
But Seoul is doing something more ambitious.
It is building a layered submarine-hunting network in which long-range P-8 Poseidons search broad ocean areas, modern destroyers and frigates contribute their own sonar systems, and MH-60R helicopters extend the detection and attack zone far beyond the ships carrying them.
All of that is happening while North Korea continues to develop missile systems and underwater platforms.
Just days before Seoul’s latest Seahawk decision, Pyongyang conducted another live-fire exercise involving ballistic and cruise missiles, underscoring how rapidly the military environment around the peninsula continues to evolve.
That makes Tuesday’s ₩3.24 trillion approval much more than another defense procurement announcement.
South Korea is effectively making a long-term decision about how it intends to hunt threats beneath the sea well into the 2030s.
And the biggest clue is not simply that Seoul wants more Seahawks — it is that the first batch has barely entered service, yet South Korea has already decided it needs around 20 more.
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