Sweden Orders M142 HIMARS in $729 Million Deal, Becoming the Program's 13th Operator

Sweden signed a Foreign Military Sales agreement with the United States on September 7, 2026 for just over ten M142 HIMARS launchers and a substantial quantity of ammunition, Breaking Defense and Defense News reported. The contract, worth SEK 7 billion (about $729 million) and placed through Lockheed Martin, was announced at Ärna Air Base by Sweden's defense minister together with the Finnish defense minister.

First deliveries are scheduled for 2027. The package extends beyond the launchers themselves. Lockheed Martin is to open Europe's first HIMARS maintenance center in Tampere, Finland. Saab is to take part in ammunition co-production. And the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb, the artillery-fired derivative of the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, is to be integrated on the Swedish launchers.

The order fills a gap rather than replacing an existing system. Sweden currently fields no rocket artillery at all. Its long-range fires rest on the Archer wheeled 155 mm self-propelled howitzer, of which the Swedish Army's equipment listing records 26 in service and 48 on order. HIMARS will give the army a rocket artillery capability it does not have today.

The program Sweden is joining is already large. According to GlobalMilitary.net's own inventory database for the 2026 inventory year, which is not an official government figure, 749 HIMARS launchers are in service across 12 countries, with a further 657 on order. The United States accounts for 540 of the launchers in service. Outside the United States, the largest fleets in service are Romania's 54, Ukraine's 41, the United Arab Emirates' 32 and Singapore's 24. The largest order books are Poland's 486, Taiwan's 100 and Australia's 34, each counted separately from the launchers those countries already operate.

Sweden becomes the 13th country in the program and the sixth in Europe. The five European entries already in the database are:

• Romania, 54 in service
• Ukraine, 41 in service
• Poland, 20 in service and 486 on order
• Italy, none in service and 21 on order
• Lithuania, none in service and 16 on order

The choice of Tampere for the maintenance center follows the rocket artillery the Finnish Army already operates. Finland fields 41 M270 MLRS, the tracked predecessor of HIMARS, under the national designation 298 RsRakH 06. For scale, the same database records 991 M270 in service with the United States, 180 with Saudi Arabia, 99 with Japan, 58 with South Korea and 43 with the United Kingdom, which has a further 76 on order. Finland's fleet is therefore among the larger M270 inventories outside the United States, and the two Nordic countries will operate the tracked and wheeled versions of the same launcher family from 2027.

The next milestones are the first Swedish deliveries in 2027, the opening of the Tampere maintenance center and the integration of the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb on the new launchers. The Swedish entry in GlobalMilitary.net's armies index will record the launchers once they enter service; until then, Sweden appears in the HIMARS order book with a count the two governments have so far given only as just over ten.