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Saab, Denel create joint air defence system from their products

23rd September 2016

By: Keith Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

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Swedish security and defence group Saab has revealed that it and South African Defence group Denel have cooperated to integrate the former’s Giraffe radar with the latter’s Umkhonto surface-to-air missile. “It’s producing a system that’s going to be very hard to beat,” Saab Country Unit Africa head Hans Rosén told Engineering News. This development is, in a sense, a spin-off of the acquisition of the Saab Gripen fighter by the South African Air Force. During that programme, he explained, the two businesses learned to trust each other.

In the pre-Africa Aerospace and Defence exhibition defence media briefing in Centurion, at which he announced the intended integration of the two systems, Rosén described the result as a “comprehensive solution, combining Swedish high-tech with South African high-tech . . . Two standalone, really good systems, combined into one system.”

Saab is targeting Africa as a future growth market for both its defence and civilian security products and systems. Currently, according to an international defence market survey, Africa accounts for only 2% of the global defence market. But the Swedes are in no hurry. “We start small [in Africa] – we have a long-term approach,” he told journalists.

Regarding the continent, the group has identified “three centres of gravity”: Southern Africa and East Africa, West Africa and North Africa. “Today, we only have our feet firmly on the ground in Southern and East Africa,” reported Rosén. “We base ourselves in South Africa and find our way into Africa from here.” The company has enjoyed good growth in the region in recent years. The group has a major subsidiary in South Africa: Saab Grintek Defence. The Swedish parent holds 75% of this, while the other 25% is black-owned, giving it a broad-based black-economic-empowerment status of Level 3.

For Africa, the group is offering air, land and maritime, as well as civil security, systems. In addition to defence markets, two key target areas are law enforcement and coastal surveillance and security. “We’re looking at police forces, and at various coastal structures – coast guards and so forth.”

Products and systems on offer include the Saab MSA 340 maritime security aircraft (based on the Saab 340 twin turboprop regional airliner), the Maritime Traffic Management system, the TactiCall (a Saab brand name) police, security and emergency services communications and control system, air traffic management systems, army tactical weapons systems such as the Carl Gustav, the AT-4 and the NLAW (next generation light antitank weapon) unguided and guided shoulder-fired anti-armour and direct fire support weapons, as well as the Barracuda camouflage system.

For major African countries with greater defence needs, the company can offer its Gripen multirole fighter, in both its current (Gripen C and D) and New Generation (NG, also known as Gripen E and F) versions. The plan is to produce both types in parallel to meet the different needs of different customers. The NG has been ordered by Sweden (so far, 60 aircraft) and Brazil (to date, 36). (The C and E are single-seaters and the D and F are two-seaters.)

Rosén described Saab as “basically standing on two legs – called Market Areas, and the industry side (Business Areas)”. The Market Areas are Asia-Pacific; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; Latin America; Nordic and Baltic (that is, northern and north-eastern Europe); and North America. The Europe, Middle East and Africa Market Area is headquartered in London.

The Saab group itself had sales of 27-billion Swedish Krone last year (about $3.19-billion, or R45.84-billion). It had 14 700 employees worldwide and had 100 customer countries. “Saab is more and more converting itself into a global company,” stated Rosén. “A global, leading security and defence company . . . Basically, we go from satellites to submarines and everything in between.”

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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