Polish manufacturer of flying drones is taking to land and sea. Premieres coming soon.

• The WB Group expects to sign a joint venture agreement with the South Korean company Hanwha Aerospace at the defense fair in Kielce in early September for the production in Poland of missiles for the K239 Chunmoo launcher, which are operated in Poland as Homar-K.
• The company, known so far for its flying unmanned aerial vehicles such as FlyEye and Warmate, is preparing to premiere a floating drone, which it has named Stormrider.
• The group also intends to present the concept of a ground unit with unmanned vehicles armed with machine guns, suicide drone launchers and anti-tank mine launchers.
• We will discuss challenges facing the military and the economy during the "Defense Industry" conference. The event will take place on October 15 at the International Congress Center in Katowice.

One of the largest defense trade fairs in Europe, the International Defense Industry Exhibition, will take place in Kielce during the first week of September. On Tuesday, the WB Group, Poland's largest private defense industry entity—although with PFR participation—announced its presentation.

"We have essentially agreed on the terms of the agreement with Hanwha regarding the joint venture. We hope that after approval by Hanwha's various corporate bodies, the agreement will be signed at MSPO ," Piotr Wojciechowski, CEO and co-founder of the WB Group, told reporters.

The Polish WB Group and the South Korean Hanwha Aerospace are cooperating in the field of ammunition for the K239 Chunmoo rocket launchers, the Polonized version of which has been designated Homar-K.

The Polish Ministry of Defense has ordered a total of 290 launchers from 2022. They are being installed on Polish trucks from Jelcz (part of the state-owned Polish Armaments Group) and are receiving the Topaz fire control system and communications equipment from the WB Group.

The joint venture is getting closer, but the factory's location remains a mystery.

In October 2024, WB Group and Hanwha Aerospace signed an agreement, as stated in a press release, "concerning detailed arrangements for the establishment and operation of a joint venture" that would produce CGR-080 missiles for Homar-K in Poland. The project also includes the development and implementation of new types of missiles, in line with the needs of the Polish Ministry of Defense.

In mid-April 2025, both parties "signed key terms of the agreement for the establishment and operation of the joint venture." Under the agreement, Hanwha Aerospace will hold a 51 percent stake in the new company, and WB Electronics (the leading company of the WB Group) will hold the remaining 49 percent. Establishing the joint venture requires prior approval from the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection. The partners also intend to offer missile ammunition to other European countries.

The President of the WB Group emphasized on Tuesday that for the first time, surface-to-surface missiles will be manufactured in Poland from start to finish.

"Both partners are also responsible for the Polonization of the rocket, which means that a whole series of various Polish partners and suppliers will be involved, primarily from the region where the factory will be located . I won't reveal the factory's location at this time, as it is still being discussed and negotiated with various local governments. However, for the region where the factory will be located, it will be a significant element of industrial strengthening, as the number of partners will be significant," said Piotr Wojciechowski, CEO of the WB Group.

Wojciechowski emphasized that the WB Group maintains its growth dynamics and, more importantly, its export dynamics.

The group, as the president said, focuses on multi-domain capabilities. What's this all about? In NATO, operational domains are defined as the environments in which the military operates.

There are three traditional operational domains: land, sea, and airspace. Over time, a fourth, space, has been added. In 2016, at the Warsaw Summit, the North Atlantic Alliance added cyberspace to the list.

WB Group's unmanned aerial vehicles in new domains

In turn, the WB Group, which has been supplying the Polish Army with flying drones for over a dozen years, will this time present floating and land unmanned aerial vehicles .

– We will be showing both unmanned vehicles and boats – announced Wojciechowski.

The WB Group emphasizes that it is not so much involved in the production of unmanned aircraft as in the creation of systems in which unmanned aircraft are only one element. It notes that unmanned boats can cooperate with flying drones, or that some unmanned aerial vehicles can redirect communications to others.

This is what is happening in Ukraine, where FlyEye reconnaissance drones serve as radio signal transmitters for Warmate strike drones (so-called suicide drones), which significantly increases the range of targets .

For almost a decade, the WB Group has had a company in Ukraine that manufactures the Group's products under license and employs approximately 100 people. It also trains operators and services unmanned aerial vehicles.

"We often hear about drones being purchased by the Ukrainian government, and believe me, a large portion of these drones are manufactured by our company in Ukraine," said Wojciechowski. He estimated the Ukrainian subsidiary's production capacity at around 1,000 drones per year—both FlyEye and Warmate.

Both are relatively small drones (FlyEye has a wingspan of 3.6 meters, Warmate is smaller), making them difficult to bring down.

– Neither on the Russian nor on the Ukrainian side are there drones with a wingspan larger than six meters – said the president of the WB Group.

Stormrider at Sea

While Poland isn't a shipbuilding giant, it is the world's second-largest yacht manufacturer. The WB Group is capitalizing on this potential by proposing a new unmanned maritime vehicle called Stormrider. This small vehicle is approximately 8.5 meters long, 3 meters wide, and weighs over three tons. This is the length and width of a hybrid boat that could be carried by a warship, such as a guided-missile frigate.

"We're not building an alternative to ships. Ships are one thing, and drones are something else entirely," emphasized Bartłomiej Zając, CEO of Radmor, a company owned by the WB Group.

The Stormrider is integrated with a light unmanned turret with a 12.7-millimeter ZMU-05N machine gun (the prototype was developed jointly with the state-owned Huta Stalowa Wola) and a Warmate tube drone launcher in strike and reconnaissance versions.

According to its creators, the Stormrider could be used for reconnaissance, strike, patrol, and even electronic warfare . It is expected to be capable of performing missions in sea states ranging from three to five.

The unmanned boat is a proposal designed for the Navy, Border Guard and Special Forces.

New platoon on land

In the land domain, the WB Group wants to present the concept of an unmanned-manned platoon, known in English as the Future Task Force , at MSPO.

This unit is to consist of a manned command vehicle and carrier vehicles, which can be piloted or remotely controlled as needed. The carriers are to be equipped with effectors, and the WB Group is initially proposing its own products – a light unmanned turret with a 12.7-millimeter machine gun, a Warmate quadruple tube launcher for strike or reconnaissance drones, and a launcher for deploying anti-tank mines.

- This solution gives the battalion the ability to reconnaissance at much greater ranges than before and the ability to strike at ranges of over 50 kilometers - said Jarosław Czajka, director of unmanned systems at the WB Group.

He pointed out that currently a military battalion can hit the enemy at a distance of about 10-12 kilometers .

The carrier vehicles will be based on Aero high-mobility vehicles, already known in the military, where they were purchased for the 6th Airborne Brigade. According to the WB Group, the vehicle may be equipped with an energy storage system, allowing it to remain in standby mode for "over seven days." The vehicle is powered by a linear hybrid system – a diesel engine and an electric motor.

Representatives of the WB Group point out that the concept consists of solutions that are already in use in the army, so implementation can take place very quickly, even in less than six months.

Following the example of artillery, where the Gladius system manufactured by Grupa WB is implemented as an additional battery within a squadron, the proposed manned-unmanned platoon would serve as an additional platoon within a company, without changing the existing subunit structure. The platoon itself would have an open architecture. According to assurances, the logistics of a battalion with such a platoon would change minimally.

The WB Group isn't the only one gearing up for the Kielce trade fair. In a recent interview with WNP, Jan Grabowski, vice president of the state-owned Polish Armaments Group, said that PGZ wants to focus on international cooperation .

"We want to showcase the multitude of foreign partners we already have as the PGZ Group. Not only what we can do for the Ministry of National Defense with our own resources, but also what we can do and have already done with foreign partners," he said.