DTN News: Israel's Rafael Plans JV for Missile Systems In India

DTN News: Israel's Rafael Plans JV for Missile Systems In India *Source: DTN News / By Tarun Shukla Livemint.com (NSI News Source Info) NEW DELHI, India - February 18, 2010: Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd plans to start a joint venture in India with state-owned Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) to develop advanced missile systems. Since the Kargil conflict in 1999, Israel has emerged as the second largest defence supplier to India, with annual sales estimated at $1 billion (Rs4,600 crore). The state-owned firm plans to use its India joint venture facility to source some locally made materials, mandatory for all overseas defence supplies and known as offsets. “This is will be our first joint venture. Part of the offsets that we have to provide in India will be in this joint venture,” said Lova Drori, executive vice-president, marketing, Rafael, on the sidelines of the sixth land and naval defence systems DefExpo 2010 show in the Capital. With around two dozen firms, Israel’s presence is among the biggest at the expo. As many as 650 firms from 23 countries, excluding China and Pakistan, are present at the show. A BEL executive said his firm is in discussions with Rafael regarding the joint venture. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak with the media. “Missiles developed here use command guidance. You can have a radar that can send signals for command guidance. At present that is what is done in Akash,” the official said. “Seekers have been tried in India for Nag missiles. But (more) mature technologies will be helpful as well.” The executive was referring to a seeker, which is a missile guidance device aboard an interceptor missile that searches for and homes in on a target. BEL will hold a 74% stake in the venture and Rafael will own the rest, Drori said, adding that the companies would soon seek government approval on this. He also said that the proposed facility will eventually be scaled up to develop new technologies in missile seekers depending on the projects it can secure from India. Once approved, the factory will be located near an existing campus of BEL, which has facilities in Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad. Drori said his firm is not looking at a 49% participation in the joint venture as it feels the Indian government may not allow that. “We do not want to do that. Its unachievable. The government will not approve. We will be happy with 26%,” he said.

DTN News: Indian Army Acquires Anti-Aircraft Missiles

DTN News: Indian Army Acquires Anti-Aircraft Missiles

*Source: DTN News / Defense Media

(NSI News Source Info) NEW DELHI, India - August 19, 2009: The Indian Army will soon have sharper teeth to defend its troops and tanks from aerial threats.

The defence acquisition council, headed by Defence Minister AK Antony and comprising the 3 service chiefs, agreed to a multi-billion dollar contract for Israeli anti-aircraft missiles.

SPYDER is a low-level quick reaction surface-to-air missile system capable of engaging aircraft, helicopters, unmanned air vehicles, drones and precision-guided munitions.

The council cleared the Low-level Quick Reaction surface to air Missile for the army from Israeli Aircraft Industries and Rafael.

This missile will help to protect India's tanks and armoured vehicles against enemy air attack. The Spyder is a low-level quick-reaction surface-to-air missile system capable of engaging aircraft, helicopters, unmanned air vehicles, drones and precision-guided munitions.

The Spyder system has 360 degree engagement capability and the missiles can be launched from full-readiness state in less than five seconds after a target is acquired.

The Spyder's kill range is from less than 1km to more than 35 km and at altitudes from a minimum of 20 metres to a maximum of 9 kilometres. The system is capable of firing at multiple targets and can be operated in all weather conditions.

DTN News: General Dynamics Armament And Technical Products To Produce Reactive Armor For Stryker Vehicles / GD To Produce Reactive Armor For Stryker

DTN News: General Dynamics Armament And Technical Products To Produce Reactive Armor For Stryker Vehicles / GD To Produce Reactive Armor For Stryker Vehicles

(NSI News Source Info) CHARLOTTE, N.C. – May 28, 2009: General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada has awarded General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products a contract valued at more than $150 million to qualify and produce reactive armor tile sets for the Stryker family of vehicles. Deliveries are expected to begin in March 2010.

Stryker is a family of eight-wheel-drive combat vehicles, transportable in a C-130 aircraft, being built for the US Army by General Dynamics Land Systems - Canada (formerly General Motors Defense) and General Dynamics Land Systems Division of USA. Stryker is based on the GDLS Canada LAV III 8×8 light armoured vehicle, in service since early 2001. The LAV III is itself a version of the Piranha III built by Mowag of Switzerland, now part of GDLS - Europe. Fabrication and final assembly of the vehicles is being shared among plants at Anniston, Alabama; Lima, Ohio; and London, Ontario.

General Dynamics Land Systems is the original equipment manufacturer of the Stryker vehicle. All three companies are units of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD). General Dynamics’ reactive armor system comprises tiles that fasten to the exterior of the Stryker family of vehicles, allowing it to better withstand hits from a variety of anti-armor munitions.

“Our reactive armor technology is light-weight and provides an increased level of equipment and troop protection against shape-charged threats, including rocket-propelled grenades or RPGs,” said Russ Klein, vice president and general manager of weapon systems for General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products. “We are proud to work with our General Dynamics’ teammates to provide potentially life-saving technologies to U.S. servicemen and women.”

Work will be performed at the General Dynamics’ facility in Camden, Ark., and will create 20 new jobs at the Camden facility in January 2010. Program management will take place in General Dynamics’ Burlington Technology Center in Vermont. As a strategic partner, RAFAEL Armament Development Authority Ltd., Ordnance Systems Division, will share the production workload in Haifa, Israel.

In support of this new contract, the Arkansas Economic Development Commission awarded General Dynamics a grant to offset costs incurred in purchasing production-related equipment. The grant provided the company with an opportunity to streamline production efforts, as well as create local jobs.

General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products' facility in Camden, Ark., produces warheads and performs rocket-motor assembly and complete rocket integration. Employees are trained to handle energetic material, and the site adheres to stringent quality standards through the use of several advanced quality control laboratories. The 1,300-acre facility has more than 120 buildings that support a variety of U.S. military weapon systems programs, including the Hydra-70 2.75-inch rocket, Hellfire and Javelin missiles and the Modular Artillery Charge System.

General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products, located in Charlotte, N.C., provides a broad range of system solutions for military and commercial applications. The company designs, develops and produces high-performance weapon and armament systems, defensive armor, countermeasure systems and aerospace composite solutions, as well as off-road axle and suspension systems. It is also a leading U.S. producer of biological and chemical detection systems. More information about General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products can be found on the Internet at http://www.gdatp.com/.

General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Va., employs approximately 92,900 people worldwide. The company is a market leader in business aviation; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and information systems and technologies. More information about General Dynamics is available online at www.gd.com.

IAI Casts Lot For Future Growth With Brazil

IAI Casts Lot For Future Growth With Brazil

(NSI News Source Info) RIO DE JANEIRO - April 17, 2009: Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) looked around the world for its future growth and signed up for Brazil and India, said Yair Shamir, chairman of the diversified aerospace and defense group. That global strategy for growth was ratified by the IAI board, Shamir said April 16 at the Latin America Aerospace and Defense (LAAD) show. To pursue the Brazilian market, IAI recently signed a 50/50 joint venture agreement with Synergy Group, an industrial and engineering group with large shipbuilding and aviation interests. IAI talked to a number of companies but opted for Synergy because it was looking for a partner that would allow diversification of activities. The joint venture agreement was complicated and took some time to finalize. IAI settled on a joint venture rather than an outright acquisition, which was considered too risky. IAI's approach will be "practical, not theoretical," Shamir said. The joint venture will seek out projects on which it can bid, applying the Israeli company's broad range of capabilities. The president of Synergy, Germain Efromovich, said the agreement brings IAI technology into the joint venture company, which will bid for contracts with the Brazilian air force, army and navy. Synergy submitted a bid in a tender that closed April 15 for four Brazilian coast guard cutters, Efromovich said. Synergy owns two shipyards here, five commercial airlines including the Avianca carrier and a cargo operator, and an offshore helicopter fleet. The company is also involved in oil exploration and the medical field. The Brazilian company plans to invest $800 million over three years in a new shipyard in the Rio state, Efromovich. Profit margins in the aircraft business are about 8 percent to 9 percent, shipbuilding up to 15 percent, and medical 20 percent to 25 percent, he said. Synergy had 2008 sales of $2.6 billion and expects to make $3 billion. Each partner will initially inject a couple of hundred thousand dollars into the joint venture, but has capacity to put in hundreds of millions eventually. The timing is right, Shamir said, as the Brazilian armed forces are pursuing a modernization. Brazil is interested in assets such as UAVs, an early warning system and upgrades for its land, sea, air and, eventually, space capabilities, said Yair Ramati, IAI corporate vice president for marketing. Some of the needs are a wish list, but IAI looks to the joint venture to win those deals which actually come to the market. IAI is following Brazil's FX-2 combat aircraft tender, as the company has equipment, such as a radar targeting pod, electronically scanned radar, secure communications and electronic countermeasures, which could be fitted on the Saab Gripen aircraft if the Brazilian air force chooses it. IAI makes the RF radar seeker for Rafael tactical missiles and builds laser guided bombs. A win by Boeing's F/A-18 would secure business for American suppliers, while the Dassault Rafale is mainly equipped with Thales systems, leaving little room for IAI. The Israeli company also has surveillance and communications satellites, which could feed into Brazil's space ambitions. In India, IAI signed an agreement with the Tata conglomerate in the third quarter of last year.

Israel Successfuly Tests Anti-Rocket Missile: Reports

Israel Successfuly Tests Anti-Rocket Missile: Reports

(NSI News Source Info) Jerusalem - March 28, 2009: Israel has carried out several successful test launches over the past two days of missiles to stop short- and medium-range rockets, Channel Ten commercial television reported on Thursday. The missiles managed to locate, track and intercept the rockets in flight, whether fired singly or simultaneously, it reported. Channel Ten said the missiles, which can destroy rockets with a range of up to 70 kilometres (43 miles), will become operational in 2010 when the first batch is delivered to the Israeli air force. The missile system, named Iron Dome, was the target this month of a scathing report by Israel's state comptroller, who accused the defence establishment of wasting time and money on the proposed rocket protection shield. "Huge sums have been wasted because of hazardous decisions for the development of an anti-rocket defence system over the past eight years," State Comptroller Micha Lindenstraus said in her annual report, which paints a picture of bureaucratic waste and irregularities. Iron Dome and the associated Magic Wand defence system are being developed by Israel's Rafael weapons research company. In the summer of 2006 during the second war in Lebanon, the Shiite Hezbollah movement fired more than 4,000 Katyusha rockets with a 40-kilometre range, forcing around a million inhabitants of northern Israel to flee south or take refuge in shelters. Israel said its "Cast Lead" onslaught against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in December and January was aimed at ending of the firing of rockets from the Palestinian enclave towards southern Israel.

Israel May Drop Bid To Incorporate Own Know-How Into F-35 fighter

Israel May Drop Bid To Incorporate Own Know-How Into F-35 fighter

(NSI News Source Info) March 19, 2009: Israel is close to dropping an effort to put its own electronic warfare know-how into Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a mainstay of its future strike force, a Pentagon official said on Tuesday.

Incorporating Israel's system into the model being built for it "is not going to happen," said Jon Schreiber, who heads the program's international aspects. "I think our system will meet their requirements with some tweaking, and I think they're starting to come around to that realization themselves," he told Reuters in an interview. The issue is sensitive because senior Israeli military officials had maintained that their aircraft must incorporate electronic warfare technologies developed by state-controlled Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.

An Israeli embassy spokesman referred a caller to the Defense Ministry, which could not be immediately reached for comment.

Dropping plans for incorporating sensitive Israeli technology onto the F-35 would be a significant departure for Israel. Israeli F-15s and F-16s were modified to carry Israeli electronic warfare, radars, munitions and command and control systems.

Israel is set to become a kind of trailblazer for the F-35, which is being developed by the United States and eight international partners: Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway.

Israel has gone further than any non-consortium member toward acquisition, with plans to buy an initial 25 F-35A's in fiscal 2012 for delivery starting in 2014 and an option for 50 more.

The F-35 is a radar-evading, single-engine aircraft, designed to switch quickly between air-to-ground and air-to-air missions while still flying. The models built for Israel would incorporate Israeli-made data links, radios and other command and control equipment, but not the electronic warfare suite, largely because of the high cost of integrating it, Schreiber said.

"They have pretty tight budget constraints and we're attempting to fit their requirements into their budget," he said. Officials from the Pentagon's F-35 joint program office met Israeli procurement officials in New York on Monday to discuss the program, Schreiber added without elaborating on their talks.

"We expect to get a revised letter of request from (Israel) within the next month or so," and anticipate that a government-to-government deal will be concluded by the end of this year or early next year, he said.

U.S. instructor pilots would join Israeli pilots to train at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, on four of the aircraft built for Israel, Schreiber said. By early 2015, the U.S. instructors would transition to Israel to continue training pilots there.

Singapore, the other non-consortium member linked to the program through a special status, appears likely to start buying as many as 100 F-35s a year or two after Israel, Schreiber said. He expected an agreement to be signed with Singapore within the next month detailing security safeguards for program information as a prelude to "more serious discussions" about acquiring the F-35. "

At this point, we don't have any indication from Singapore that they want to put anything unique in the airplane," he said. "They want to go with a plain vanilla airplane."

F-35 competitors include Saab AB's Gripen, the Dassault Aviation SA Rafale, Russia's MiG-35 and Sukhoi Su-35, and the Eurofighter Typhoon made by a consortium of British, German, Italian and Spanish companies.

Lockheed's chief F-35 subcontractors are Northrop Grumman Corp and BAE Systems Plc. Two rival, interchangeable F-35 engines are under development. One is built by United Technologies Corp's Pratt i Whitney unit; the other by a team of General Electric Co and Rolls-Royce Group Plc.

Peru Orders Israeli, Russian Anti-Tank Missiles

Peru Orders Israeli, Russian Anti-Tank Missiles

(NSI News Source Info) March 5, 2009: Forecast International relays a report from Chile’s El Mercurio newspaper, which reports that Peru has signed $73 million in contracts for 488 Israeli and Russian anti-tank missiles to equip its armed forces, replacing or supplementing existing wire-guided Russian AT-3B/ 9M14M Sagger and German/Swiss Cobra 2000 missiles.

The Cobra 2000 was a more modern variant introduced in 1968, but the type did not have a good record in combat.

The 1960s-70s era AT-3 Sagger may be the most widely produced anti-tank missile of all time. It had some initial success in Vietnam and the Middle east, but basic countermeasures like suppressive fire spoil its effectiveness. Its most recent revival took place during the 2006 Lebanon War, when it found a more suitable niche with Hezbollah as a cheap, infantry-portable, close-range substitute for precision artillery. Peru’s recent purchases are reportedly an even split. They will buy 244 of Russia’s laser-guided AT-14/ 9M133 Kornet for $25 million. Another 244 of RAFAEL’s dual-mode wire-guided or IIR fire-and-forget Spike missiles will bought for $48 million.

Both missiles are considered to be effective against even modern tanks like Chile’s new Leopard 2A4s, but the Spike missiles have more advanced CLU electronics with built-in training capabilities, and also use an optional fire-and-forget mode. These purchases are part of a larger military modernization plan that plans to invest $650 million through 2011. El Mercurio also reports that Peru’s Army is exploring the option of overhauling its fleet of Russian-built T-55 tanks, which were modern in the early 1960s. New fire control systems and engines were to be installed in 2004 under Proyecto Arrascue, which appears to have re-started.

Israel has considerable experience refurbishing older Soviet tanks, and there are Eastern European, Ukranian, and Russian firms who could all compete for that contract when the time comes.

Israeli Pavilion Showcased Latest Weaponry To Woo India

Israeli Pavilion Showcased Latest Weaponry To Woo India

(NSI News Source Info) Bangalore - February 16, 2009:Israeli defence firms went all out to woo India, one of its biggest customers, at the Aero India Show here and Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor spent considerable time at the huge pavilion, checking out some of the latest weaponry. Israel's pavilion at the seventh edition of the Feb 11-15 Aero-India 2009 international air show was one the biggest shows and evoked a lot of interest.

An Israeli official (R) shows a corner shotgun to Indian soldiers during the "Aero India 2009" at Yelahanka air force station on the outskirts of the southern Indian city of Bangalore February 12, 2009. The 7th Aero India, organised by the ministry of defence, showcases the latest in the field of military and civil aircrafts. The show runs from February 11 to 15. The Israeli pavilion even screened a bhangra pop number shot in Hindi-film style to attract Indian buyers. Israel's Rafael Advanced Defence Systems put up big screens showing Israeli artists wearing lehanga-choli and dancing to bhangra beats. An Indian defence ministry official told IANS: "Last year, an Indian delegation led by Defence Secretary Vijay Singh had gone to Israel for talks to bolster the strategic ties between the two countries. And this year Israel has got one of the biggest pavilions at the Aero India. This signifies that the ties between the two countries will strengthen in the years to come." India is Israel's biggest customer for weapons and has a longstanding relationship with Tel Aviv despite geopolitical sensitivities and allegations of kickbacks in defence deals. Since the 1999 Kargil conflict India has bought military hardware and software from Israel worth around $8 billion. General Deepak Kapoor, accompanied by two top army officers, spent considerable time at the pavilion set up by the Israeli heavy munitions and missiles manufacturing industry. Kapoor checked out Israel's Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, especially its short range and medium range missiles on simulators. He "blew up" an enemy tank using the short range "Spike" missile. Kapoor also visited the pavilion set up by the Elbit system. The system specialises in the manufacture of defence airborne systems, unmanned vehicles and combat vehicle systems. In 2004, India ordered three Phalcon Airborne Early Warning radar systems from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), fitted on Russian-built Ilyushin II-76 aircraft. Israel has also sold IAI Malat-built Searcher MkII and IAI Heron unmanned aerial vehicles to the Indian Air Force. The IAI recently upgraded 32 Hind Mi-24 helicopters for the Indian Army. Currently, Rafael is a major company vying for a $10-billion contract for the supply of 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft to the Indian Air Force. In 2008, Rafael won the Indian order for low-level quick reaction missile system (LLQRM), which was competing with the mobile SPYDER (Surface-to-air Python and Derby) short-range air defence system. The company is now competing for India's quick reaction missile (QRM) and medium range surface-to-air missile (MRSAM) order with the SPYDER-SR (short-range) and SPYDER-MR (medium-range) missile systems.