Tel Aviv: Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) signed two separate agreements with two countries to deliver long range loitering munitions. The contracts’ combined value is $145 million. These two significant orders follow a previous contract signed earlier this year, that had also declared the purchase of IAI’s long range loitering munitions.
This series of orders represent the growing global demand for IAI’s long range loitering munition family and demonstrates IAI’s unique capability in this market segment.
IAI’s President and CEO Boaz Levy commented, “Loitering munitions have proven critical to achieving operational success on the battlefield worldwide. The flexibility in strikes that can be achieved with a loitering munition is a major advantage in combat and the type of precision reached is of strategic and national importance. The latest orders emphasise the trust in IAI’s loitering munitions family in bringing the required advantages to each country respectively.”
IAI’s family of long range loitering munitions includes the Harpy NG, Harop, and Mini Harpy. In the 1980s, IAI invented the loitering munitions weapon class when it introduced the Harpy. Equipped with an Anti-Radiation (AR) seeker, the Harpy was designed for the autonomous Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD) missions. Today, IAI offers the next generation, the Harpy NG – a more advanced loitering munition used against a diverse range of radiating targets.
The Harop, a derivative of the Harpy, is a combat proven loitering munition with a naval and land versions. The Harop is used against a variety of combat scenarios including against terror threats. Using a day and night Electro Optical seeker, the Harop scans, detects, identifies, and attacks stationary and moving targets with exceptional precision and at any angle.
The Mini Harpy is the only loitering munition in the world to carry a triple seeker – Electro-optical day, night, and AR. The combined seeker allows detection and attack in severe weather conditions and makes it very difficult for the target to avoid detection and destruction.. The Mini Harpy has electrical propulsion and is equipped with an anti-tank warhead. Like the other long range loitering munitions, Mini Harpy is canister-launched.
-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
