Defexpo 2010

Crit­i­cal civil­ian infra­struc­ture and mil­i­tary instal­la­tions such as for­ward oper­at­ing bases remain par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to aer­i­al attack, and the same is true of troops on road march­es and sup­ply con­voys in rear areas. The threat spec­trum ranges from con­ven­tion­al air strikes by manned and unmanned air­craft to rock­et, artillery and mor­tar (RAM) fire. Today, even uncon­ven­tion­al forces employ­ing asym­met­ric tac­tics are able to car­ry out attacks of this type, using increas­ing­ly small but pow­er­ful pro­jec­tiles – launched with lit­tle or no warn­ing and often from dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed urban areas. 

Armed forces around the world are well aware of this threat, as can be seen from recent pro­cure­ment major orders. India, too, plans to mod­ern­ize its air defence capabilities. 

Source: Rhein­metall Defence

Rhein­metall, one of the world’s lead­ing sup­pli­ers of advanced defence tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems, pre­sent­ed a wide array of sophis­ti­cat­ed air defence solu­tions at Def­ex­po 2010. 

The company’s high-per­for­mance 35mm revolver gun, teamed with its sig­na­ture Ahead air­burst ammu­ni­tion, can be inte­grat­ed into numer­ous air defence sys­tems. This weapon has been suc­cess­ful­ly deployed in NATO oper­a­tions since 1996. It forms the main arma­ment of Rheinmetall’s glob­al­ly lead­ing Skyshield sys­tem, which, for exam­ple, the Ger­man Bun­deswehr is cur­rent­ly procur­ing for its Man­tis very short-range air defence sys­tem (NBS C‑RAM), to be used in defend­ing for­ward oper­at­ing bases. Giv­en the pos­si­bil­i­ty of inte­grat­ing addi­tion­al mod­u­lar com­po­nents, it sig­ni­fies the arrival of a new gen­er­a­tion of Germany’s com­pre­hen­sive air defence sys­tem, the SysFla. 

The heart of Rheinmetall’s pro­pri­etary Ahead tech­nol­o­gy is a high-pre­ci­sion time-delay pro­jec­tile. At the opti­mum moment, it ejects a lethal cloud of heavy met­al pel­lets, reli­ably neu­tral­iz­ing small and even very small tar­gets – much the way a shot­gun shell destroys a clay pigeon. 

But Rhein­metall tech­nol­o­gy is by no means lim­it­ed to sta­t­ic defence roles. Mobile appli­ca­tions are equal­ly fea­si­ble. For exam­ple, the 35mm gun can be mount­ed on an anti­air­craft tank, and thus be used to pro­tect troops on the move from aer­i­al threats. How­ev­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to pro­tect­ing sup­ply routes, lighter, more mobile plat­forms can be a bet­ter bet. Rhein­metall has bridged the gap between sta­t­ic defence and armoured plat­forms by mount­ing a Skyshield gun on an all-ter­rain 8x8 vehi­cle made by its Indi­an part­ner Tata. The result is a swift­ly avail­able high-per­for­mance air defence solution. 

Source: Rhein­metall Defence

Exist­ing Sky­guard and Skyshield sys­tems can also be retro­fit­ted with Ahead tech­nol­o­gy. More­over, owing to the mod­u­lar ori­en­ta­tion of its sys­tems and tech­nolo­gies, Rhein­metall is able to bring addi­tion­al com­po­nents into play, cre­at­ing mul­ti-mis­sion capa­bil­i­ties tai­lored to the needs of indi­vid­ual clients. 

Recent orders by the Ger­man Bun­deswehr, among oth­ers, once again under­score Rheinmetall’s sta­tus as a glob­al­ly lead­ing sup­pli­er of advanced, quick­ly avail­able mod­u­lar prod­ucts for the mod­ern mil­i­tary. In an age when new threats to nation­al secu­ri­ty can emerge overnight, this means max­i­mum flex­i­bil­i­ty and max­i­mum readiness. 

Text- / Bildquelle (source): Rhein­metall Defence
Ansprech­part­ner / con­tact:
Rhein­metall AG
Cor­po­rate Sec­tor Defence
Press and Infor­ma­tion
Oliv­er Hoff­mann
Rhein­metall Platz 1
40476 Düs­sel­dorf
Ger­many
Phone: +49 211 473‑4748
Fax: +49 211 473‑4157