Tel Aviv. Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd (ST Engineering) on July 16 announced that its land systems arm has signed an agreement with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to set up a joint venture (JV) in Singapore. ST Engineering and IAI shall hold a 50 per cent share each of the JV.
The JV, named Proteus Advanced Systems Pte Ltd, will leverage the strengths and track record of its parent companies to market and sell advanced naval missile systems, including a next generation anti-ship missile (ASM) system.
It seems that the new system dubbed BLUE SPEAR 5G SSM will be based on another Israeli system Gabriel 5. However, IAI refused to comment on the type that will be manufactured by the new JV.
In 2018, Finland selected Israel’s Advanced Naval Attack Missile (ANAM) to replace its current MTO85M system, a derivative of Swedish RBS15 that will reach the end of its life cycle in the 2020s.
IAI’s Gabriel 5 won the competition against four other competitors evaluated by Finland’s MOD, including Kongsberg’s NSM, MBDA’s Exocet, Boeing’s Harpoon and Saab’s RBS15. The initial contract is worth EUR162 million, with an option worth EUR 193 million.
With a size roughly as the American Harpoon and French Exocet, the Israeli missile covers longer ranges and can complete its mission even in a highly restrictive environment. Using a modern and advanced active radar seeker and a sophisticated weapon control designed to overcome target selectivity problems, the system achieves very high operational effectiveness, particularly in littoral waters.
As such it is optimised for operation in congested waters, under heavy electronic warfare, and against sophisticated counter-measures, typical of scenarios that might be encountered in the Baltic Sea. The missile has an estimated range of 200-400 km and, according to some reports; a version of the missile is equipped with a two-way datalink.
According to the Finnish MOD, the missile will also be usable from vehicular platforms on land and against land targets.
As an advanced attack missile, Gabriel 5 could penetrate the target’s protection, both soft- and hard-kill defence.
The missile is equipped with high end electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) that can overcome chaff, advanced decoys, and active ECM.
-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
