Arrow 3 procurement is now on the agenda for next week's budget committee meeting (presumably defense committee same day - wednesday), along with IRIS-T SLM procurement.
Germany
- Thread starter gf0012-aust
- Start date
Big_Zucchini
Well-Known Member
Germany moves ahead with €4 billion purchase of Israel's Arrow-3
The Arrow-3 missile system is the top layer of Israel's defense array, designed to intercept ballistic missiles outside of the earth's atmosphere.
www.jpost.com
Moving forward, 560m euro initial payment, total project in excess of 4 billion euro.
Contract for IRIS-T SLM has been signed, six systems for 950 million including 72 training and 144 live missiles. Contract includes an option for a further 665 missiles in two tranches.
First system delivery is planned for 2024, serial production delivery 2026 to 2027. The missile option tranches can be exercised (at presumably fixed price) until 2027 and 2030 respectively.
The systems are intended for the air force. The army is planned to get IRIS-T SLS.
First system delivery is planned for 2024, serial production delivery 2026 to 2027. The missile option tranches can be exercised (at presumably fixed price) until 2027 and 2030 respectively.
The systems are intended for the air force. The army is planned to get IRIS-T SLS.
The Bundeswehr has now signed a new framework contract for up to 350,000 rounds DiNa155 ammunition.
DiNa155 is a IM-HE-ER round for 155mm/L52 howitzers manufactured by Nammo with a (extended) range of 41 km that includes a "deep intrusion" fuze pit for Diehl-manufactured long artillery fuzes for optional future modification with fuzes like Diehl 2DGMArt, a course-correcting guidance module.
The framework contract runs until 2029 and apparently also includes options for ordering alternative/additional artillery fuzes from Diehl. Current unit cost for the rounds is apparently around 5,800 EUR.
The last artillery ammunition framework contract was signed in 2019 and runs until early next year, hence the new contract now. The previous contract was with Rheinmetall Waffe Munition (RWM) for DM121 155mm rounds and - due to only being ordered to cover running exercise ammunition usage, not stockpiling - had massively smaller overall quantities (about 20% of the new contract, by average annual availability). It was also significantly cheaper at around 3600 EUR cost per round, about 75% of the new price when adjusted for inflation.
Some of the ammunition from the new contract will also be delivered to Ukraine, including an initial batch of 4,700 rounds.
Small correction on above post:
Apparently the options in the current running framework contract (DM121 from RWM) are additionally being fully called up, expanded and delivery times extended to 2026, probably by about 25,000 rounds. This seems to be intended to bridge the gap to the new contract.
There is also a contract for replacement of ammunition delivered to Ukraine, and one to buy new artillery fuzes. Details of this contract are classified, although that may also have to do with recent failures (misfires) of Cold War era fuzes during training in Germany that haven't really made it into the press.
Germany is - supposedly, according to Rheinmetall - currently the sole provider of 120mm and 105mm tank ammunition and 20mm and 35mm medium caliber ammunition for Ukraine though. In addition it looks like most 40mm grenades in use in Ukraine seem to also come from Germany.
Ukraine is mostly mentioned in the above contracts because the funding for that is completely separate from the defence budget, and therefore the contracts are in a mixed dual funding situation. They also like to use that to obfuscate the contracts a bit in the public.
Apparently the options in the current running framework contract (DM121 from RWM) are additionally being fully called up, expanded and delivery times extended to 2026, probably by about 25,000 rounds. This seems to be intended to bridge the gap to the new contract.
There is also a contract for replacement of ammunition delivered to Ukraine, and one to buy new artillery fuzes. Details of this contract are classified, although that may also have to do with recent failures (misfires) of Cold War era fuzes during training in Germany that haven't really made it into the press.
Germany is not a primary provider of artillery ammunition to Ukraine, and does not intend to be, at least in a direct government-to-government fashion. Especially now that providing such has been deferred entirely to the European Union.
Germany is - supposedly, according to Rheinmetall - currently the sole provider of 120mm and 105mm tank ammunition and 20mm and 35mm medium caliber ammunition for Ukraine though. In addition it looks like most 40mm grenades in use in Ukraine seem to also come from Germany.
Ukraine is mostly mentioned in the above contracts because the funding for that is completely separate from the defence budget, and therefore the contracts are in a mixed dual funding situation. They also like to use that to obfuscate the contracts a bit in the public.
I was thinking of what ammunition consumption in Ukraine says about the need for ammunition stocks in case of war, not who is supplying how much to Ukraine.
It applies to far more than just shells, of course. Other munitions, gun barrels . . . Everyone was surprised by the consumption rates of munitions in 1914, & we're re-learning that lesson all over again.
It applies to far more than just shells, of course. Other munitions, gun barrels . . . Everyone was surprised by the consumption rates of munitions in 1914, & we're re-learning that lesson all over again.
Rheinmetall has also signed separate contracts for ammunition deliveries with the government now:
- an expansion of the previous DM121 contract for 127 million Euro, presumably for around 30,000 rounds. These are for immediate delivery, the framework contract expires next year.
- about 330,000 complete rounds 155mm howitzer ammunition for 1.2 billion Euro; this also includes fuzes for the shells and firing charges for PzH2000. This is for a variety of types within Rheinmerall's newer "Assegai" ammunition portfolio, as well as a wider variety of other ammunition Rheinmetall offers in the caliber (also smoke, illumination, more DM121...).
- an expansion of Rheinmetall's framework contract ofr 120x570mm NATO (tank) ammunition. This framework contract was originally signed in 2020 for 203,000 rounds worth 556 million Euro. It is now being expanded to "more than 4 billion Euro" for "several hundred thousand rounds". The 2020 contract was overwhelmingly for inert training ammunition though, only containing a small contingent of 19,000 DM11 ABM-HE rounds . The expansion seems to increase the numbers for these as well as additionally including a more regular HE round.
The Arrow III procurement has now officially been passed by the Bundestag for the full 4 billion.Germany moves ahead with €4 billion purchase of Israel's Arrow-3
The Arrow-3 missile system is the top layer of Israel's defense array, designed to intercept ballistic missiles outside of the earth's atmosphere.
Moving forward, 560m euro initial payment, total project in excess of 4 billion euro.
Waffensystem Arrow: Haushaltsausschuss stimmt Beschaffung zu
Für die Bundeswehr wird das israelische Luftverteidigungssystem Arrow mit Lenkflugkörpern Arrow 3 gekauft.
www.bmvg.de
The deal includes both the weapon systems as well as missiles, an initial spare parts package and crew training.
The new Polaris demonstrator called MIRA built for the Bundeswehr for this contract completed ground tests of its systems this week and had another scale demonstrator perform a campaign of 15 flights to test flight control systems in August and September
It is planned for MIRA to perform its maiden flight and conduct live hot firing a linear aerospike engine before the end of the year. The airspace exclusion zone around Peenemünde airport for this campaign is already in place since September (until end of year), with NOTAMs 48 hours before a test flight would require the exclusion zone to be emptied.
Germany formally handed over its camp in Gao and withdrew its last 142 soldiers from Mali today. 4 soldiers remain at MINUSMA HQ until the end of the week, when that will shut down too. During the 10 years of German participation there about 25,000 individual soldiers deployed to the country (plus another 6,600 individual soldiers for EUTM Mali). The mandate for Mali most recently was up to 1400 soldiers; last month the Bundeswehr still had about 500 soldiers there.
The withdrawal was mostly done using German A400M transport aircraft via Senegal. Some larger equipment (such as a Bison armoured recovery vehicle) was flown out pretty late on two C-17 flights booked from the USAF taxi service after Niger closed its airspace to German flights (Germany has a flight hour contingent with USAF for those C-17, and has used it before for Mali a few times).
This concludes the last of the "big" foreign deployments of the Bundeswehr out-of-area, i.e. outside NATO - where parliament needs to approve a deployment.
The largest remaining deployments are:
The withdrawal was mostly done using German A400M transport aircraft via Senegal. Some larger equipment (such as a Bison armoured recovery vehicle) was flown out pretty late on two C-17 flights booked from the USAF taxi service after Niger closed its airspace to German flights (Germany has a flight hour contingent with USAF for those C-17, and has used it before for Mali a few times).
This concludes the last of the "big" foreign deployments of the Bundeswehr out-of-area, i.e. outside NATO - where parliament needs to approve a deployment.
The largest remaining deployments are:
- the "training and stabilization mission" in Iraq with about 300 soldiers
- UNIFIL (Lebanon) with about 200 soldiers, most of that onboard F125 frigate Baden-Württemberg
- Sea Guardian (Mediterranean) with variable numbers depending on whether there's a ship deployed/assigned to it (ships for this tend to be simply temporarily reassigned from NATO SNMG2 for a few weeks at a time).
SONIX has now been okayed by the defence and budget committees with a budget of 99.8 million Euro, during their last meeting for this year.
Apparently SONIX - long name "Sonar in The Box" - is a containerized solution for "passive acoustic processing and recording" that can be deployed onboard ships. It's basically a containerized sonar buoy processor not integrated to the ship's CMS. Supposedly it can therefore be deployed on any ship. The intended main purpose seems to be to provide multistatic detection capabilities to ships equipped with a hull-mounted sonar, as well as to provide passive torpedo detection capability.
The Bundeswehr apparently has three SONIX systems already, which would be about as many as they can buy without parliamentary approval. The procurement from the 100 billion fond is for buying another 11 systems, plus 12 as options - meaning the Bundeswehr basically seeks to have enough for a fleet-wide deployment.
Producer is Atlas Elektronik, and their sole advertisement for it is a tiny blurp on page 5 of a brochure for their hull-mounted sonars. And an ad on Indiamart, for some reason. They seem to have the system available in other configurations as well, including airborne for helicopters and MPA. The German configuration seems to include a containerized situation analysis center called LADA, which suggests it is also intended for ships without any CMS (such as supply ships, tenders etc). It is unknown to me whether the overall SONIX system also includes a method of deploying sonobuoys, the stated size (three TEU) would suggest it.
Last edited: