Slovakia has just announced that it is entering into exclusive negotiations with the Israeli IAI, to acquire six Barak MX anti-aircraft systems for a total amount of €553,4 million, causing a real disappointment for European arms manufacturers participant in the competition.
For the occasion, the Israeli industrialist has, in fact, imposed itself against the German IRIS-T, while Slovakia participates in the European Sky Shield initiative, and against the French VL MICA, which still fails not to be convinced on the old continent.
Once again, a European country has therefore preferred to turn to an exogenous technology, designed and produced outside Europe, with all the operational, technological and political risks that this entails, and to the detriment of the main principles of cohesion, cooperation and collective defense, put forward during the NATO and European Union summits.
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Slovakia is turning to the Israeli Barak MX medium-range anti-aircraft system to replace its Soviet 2K12 Kub (SA-6).
Bratislava has therefore just announced the winner of the competition organized for the replacement of its 2K12 Kub mobile medium-range anti-aircraft systems, designated by NATO under the code SA-6 Gainful.
Surprisingly, it is not the VL MICA proposed by MBDA France, and neither the IRIS-T SLM from the German Diehl, which was selected to begin the exclusive negotiations for this contract of more than 550 m€, for six ground-air batteries, but the Israeli IAI, which imposed itself with the system co-developed with India, the Barak MX.
If the VL MICA acted as a challenger in this competition, Slovakia not being a privileged partner of the French defense industry, nor even of MBDA in general, the eviction of the IRIS-T SLM appears, on the other hand , like a real surprise.
Indeed, Slovakia was one of the 13 European countries signatories to the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), in October 2022. Launched by Olaf Scholz in August 2022, this initiative aims to harmonize and interconnect European air and anti-missile defense systems. , so as to optimize efficiency and interoperability.
However, the ESSI is based, today, on only three standard equipment: the Arrow 3 anti-ballistic system from the Israeli IAI, acquired only by the Bundeswehr, the American Patriot system, for long and medium anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense. range, and the German IRIS-T SLM, for medium and short range defense.
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It might also be a matter of BITD being in phase with its market.
Let me explain, NavalGroup has made a big effort to rationalize its production tool and its marketing techniques, which has led to success with a more than competitive price for some of the most efficient equipment.
Perhaps the price of a MICA VL system offered by MBDA France is not quite adapted to this market, because it seems incongruous to me that a SAMP/T, which seems to have demonstrated its capabilities, should not find a buyer either, even though it is combat proven both at sea with the ASTER15/30 and on the ground in Ukraine...
To complete my post: Rafael / Raytheon offers the Skyceptor/Stunner missile for the Patriot-3 (“plug and play”)
A factory is under construction in Romania and we are talking about a cost divided by 3 or 4!, with higher "published" performances. PAC 3 customers (Poland, Japan, etc.) are being actively approached and Raytheon, manufacturer of the Patriot system, is not making a secret of it, quite the contrary.
A 2nd source (or 3rd if we include Israel) for a fraction of the price, this strengthens their offer, plus a Romanian missile...NATO/EU...etc! (Although the first deliveries are apparently Israeli)
Moreover, it is LM, its competitor, which manufactures the "original" missiles... We must probably expect offers of clones elsewhere in the future. This risks becoming "a generic"
A lesson for Dassault, Naval G, ? (India, Brazil,..) to lower its cost base and reassure potential customers by its capacity to supply including for the MCO over 25 years
The Isr. who were never fans of the Patriot System ("Wipe the plaster"? since 1991) have abandoned the PAC 2
Nothing surprising, the opposite will be the exception (strategic, political, industrial reasons)
With volumes of missile firing every day that were unbelievable 2 years ago, there is an ecosystem with the capacity and costs to match.
They are ready and probably very effective. (For the record, the radars and the trajectory radars, covering the S Lebanon and the N of Is of the UNIFIL are operated by French Gunners..we count the points..UN secret! therefore known, at least to our EM but also to others
The HBollah also accuses the "French radar" of informing the IS...which is not impossible involuntarily.
Like the SK, the Isr. are already in the "high intensity" and these countries have no technological delay? sometimes the opposite