Recent articles from a variety of sources have claimed that Britain is buying the Iron Dome missile defence system from Israel to protect the Falklands, it’s not.
The UK is not buying Iron Dome. Land Ceptor and Giraffe AMB will however be integrated with the BMC4I functionality of Iron Dome to deliver the Sky Sabre comprehensive air defence capability.
A host of deals were agreed around the turn of the year but are only now becoming public. This includes award of a contract by the British to the Israeli company to supply a key battlefield command-and-control network for the Sky Sabre system. The main contract award, which the MoD valued at £78 million, was signed in January with Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, to develop a battle management, command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (BMC4I) network.
Missile builder MBDA and surveillance radar supplier Saab have also been awarded contracts to integrate other, already ordered, ground-based air-defense system elements into the BMC4I.
Rafael, with help from UK partners Babcock, will supply its Modular, Integrated C4I Air & Missile Defense System and associated equipment in a development and manufacture phase likely to be completed around 2020.
Babcock will provide a proportion of UK based activity including: synthetic based test and integration facilities, project management and hardware procurement. The percentage of UK work content on BMC4I is put at 40% with the remainder coming from Israel.
Recent articles from a variety of sources have claimed that Britain is buying the Iron Dome missile defence system from Israel to protect the Falklands, it’s not.
Funny enough whilst the likes of the DM and the Sun are correctly reporting that the UK is purchasing the Sky Sabre system , Russia Today started the ball rolling with this post of there’s 5 days ago:
Israel sells Britain £78m ‘Iron Dome’ to protect Falklands from missile attacks
Apologies, that should read their’s and not there’s
A person who proof reads, hooray!
Actually it should read ‘theirs’ – like ‘ours’, ‘yours’ or ‘its’, ‘theirs’ doesn’t take an apostrophe. Yet another one of the maddening inconsistencies of English!
So is there anything in this system that is inherently British other than the name?
Read the article idiot.
Yes, its a phallanx system with adjustments for land use. A highly successful kill rate. Iron dome is just a different name for it. Israelis love it.
I did wonder why this was allegedly for the Falklands given the lack of threat from Argentina.
There are Rapier batteries stationed permanently in the Falklands, so replacing them in station with landceptor seems to be logical.
For sure Argentina doesn’t threaten the falklands, but the units have to be stationed somewhere, so why not there.
Morning
Any nation that wishes to take land that it believes is theirs is a threat.
All threats need to be taken seriously.
The last time the treat wasn’t taken seriously was in 1981.
HMG is providing the minimum with regards to the defence of the Falkland Islands, a deterrent if you like.
Whilst the Argentinian military is not what it was it is still there. The Argentinian government has still pledged to re-take the islands.
There are countries out there that would be willing to provide support to Argentina, just enough to raise the tension a bit, to potentially redirect resources to support a friend in need with its perceived legitimate claim.
So the garrison is getting it’s close air defence system replaced. You would hope that the government of the day was replacing its local area GBAD with the best on the market, at the best price. If part of that system is Israeli – so what? It’s not as if they have had to design their own GBAD system to protect them from mortars, artillery or small fast moving air targets……
Yep.
Good bit of kit and Israel has sadly vast experience in this area.
How many Land Ceptor Fire Systems are being bought for 16 RA?
I’d guess 6 Systems for each of its 4 Battery’s?
The RA already operate Giraffe I believe.
Hi Daniele
I would say 4 per battery, it will be explained away as:
“£178bn being invested in new equipment over the next ten years, Land Ceptor is a game changer and as such we do not need as many systems” etc
Evening Lee
If all batteries are re equipped and the regiment does not lose any batteries then i won’t be losing sleep over that.
We have far more pressing issues to worry about!
Falklands sorted as one battery always detached there.
Surely the antenna / transmitter should be on a seperate towed trailer. to provide some protection against anti-radiation missiles.
The question begs to be asked: will this now become the standard U.K. LLADS, that is Land Ceptor, Giraffe and the Iron Dome based BMC4I system, replacing all Rapier batteries? Or is this a unique one off system for the Falklands and if so why?