AFP, STOCKHOLM: The US Army has ordered anti-armor weapons specially developed for urban warfare from the Swedish high-tech company Saab, it said on Monday.
“The AT4 CS are short-distance weapons for one-time use aimed at taking out tanks,” Anders Florenius, a spokesman for Saab business unit Bofors Dynamics, told AFP.
Florenius refused to reveal how many of the weapons the US Army had ordered, or the value of the contract, which was finalised following a year-long qualification round.
“The value of this contract doesn't lie in this first order,” he said. “It lies in the fact that the AT4 CS has passed the army's stringent qualification. We think there will be many more orders.”
The US Army bought large quantities of AT4 CS's predecessor, the AT4 starting in the 1980, according to Florenius, who said there hadn't been much competition for the contract.
“They liked the predecessor, so they tested the next-generation,” he said.
Another Saab business unit, Saab Training Systems, also announced Monday that it had won a 14-million-dollar (11.6-million-euro) contract for delivering six instrumentation systems to the US Army.
“This is the first order from the US Army for the combat simulation systems for use in the US itself. They have been using the systems in Europe … This confirms that the US Army is pleased with our product, and we hope they'll buy more,” Saab Training Systems spokesman Lars Birging told AFP.
