Ministry of Defence
Belfast firm secures £98-million air defence missile contract
A £98.4 million contract, supporting 119 jobs, has been extended to maintain Short-Range Air Defence (SHORAD) for the British Army and Royal Marines.
SHORAD is made up of High Velocity and Lightweight Multi-role Missile systems that can intercept air threats including fast jets, attack helicopters and unmanned air systems in a matter of seconds.
Thales UK won the initial contract in 2018, helping to modernise and develop the missile systems as part of the Future Air Defence Availability Project (F-ADAPT). This latest announcement confirms a five-year extension to the contract, sustaining over one hundred jobs at Thales UK’s Belfast site and within the wider Northern Ireland supply chain.
Why the U.S. Marine Corps Wants to Turn Its Trucks Into Tank-Destroyers
The plan is to potentially create a lighter, faster, more agile Marine Corps able to find and destroy enemy armored vehicles, such as tanks, without having to deploy heavy tanks.
The Marine Corps is architecting a highly-lethal lightweight tactical vehicle armed with armor-destroying weapons that can reach enemy targets as far as fifteen to twenty times the range of an Abrams tank.
The plan is to potentially create a lighter, faster, more agile Marine Corps able to find and destroy enemy armored vehicles, such as tanks, without having to deploy heavy tanks.
Is the Carting Away of Russian Pantsir S1 linked to U.S. Army’s IM-SHORAD Testing? News Analysis 11334
Russian Pantsir S1 System on the move in Libya; Image via Twitter
Speculation is rife that the U S military moving a Russian-made Pantsir S1 air defence system (ADS) from Libya to Germany may have something to do with the development and testing of the Interim Maneuver, Short-range Air-defense (IM-SHORAD) of the U.S. Army.
In May 2020 reports and photos emerged that an intact Pantsir S1 system was captured by Libyan government forces from the Libyan National Army (LNA) aligned with renegade commander Khalifa Haftar which had received it from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
New weapons include the ability to launch (and counter) drones.
The Army building up its fleet of up-gunned, missile-armed Stryker vehicles for Europe and other high-risk global threat areas. The combat platform has been upgraded in a massive and powerful way with air-defense weapons, new drone attack technologies and a stronger 30mm cannon able to fire air burst rounds and other types of ammunition.
The Stryker is also being armed with laser weapons and small, vehicle-launched, recoverable drones to increase surveillance, targeting, survivability and lethality. There are multiple variables related to this series of Stryker vehicle enhancements, a move strongly reinforced by the 2021 Defense budget which nearly doubles the amount of funding allocated for the vehicles. The Army spent more than $600 million on Strykers in 2019, and then jumped the number above $1.1 billion for 2020 and 2021.