Tel Aviv: Finland has decided to boost its air defence capabilities and two Israeli companies are competing on the potential contract. The Fins made this decision in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Finland’s Defence Minister, Antti Kaikkonen said his country has decided to upgrade its air defence systems.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Rafael Advanced Systems are the two manufacturers that are competing. IAI is offering it Barak MX and Rafael its David’s Sling.
Barak-MX is a modular air defence system and is designed to address missile and aircraft threats. It operates both in marine platforms and land, and belongs to the Barak missile family. The BARAK MX system is capable of simple integration with any existing legacy or sensors. The Barak MX Land Deployable system is capable of simple integration with any existing legacy or new sensors. All Barak MX Land Deployable components (BMC, Launchers with interceptors and Radars) can be operated from permanent infrastructure or can be truck mounted and deployed to temporal operational sites.
According to IAI, Barak MX’s innovative, software based modular approach offers you exceptional flexibility in operation and power build up and ensures simple adaptation to future threats, making it one of the most powerful, all weather, day & night solutions for today’s most challenging of threats.
The Rafael David’s Sling is another layer in the Israeli rocket and ballistic missiles protection system it can also be used to intercept armed UAV, that may be launched into the Israeli airspace. The system that has been developed by Rafael in cooperation with Raytheon.
Unlike the “Iron Dome” rocket interceptor, which has a relative small foot print, a fact that requires a large number of batteries to protect Israel, the “David’s Sling” has a much larger footprint and “a limited number” of batteries can cover Israel.
“David’s Sling” is designed to work together with other systems like the “Iron Dome” and Arrow-the Israeli developed ballistic missiles interceptor.
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
