Germany’s military procurement agency recently signed a development contract with the Short- and Very Short-Range Air Defence System Consortium, ARGE NNbS, for the “Air Defence System, Short- and Very Short-Range” or LVS NNbS.
The consortium consists of three member companies: Rheinmetall, Diehl Defence and Hensoldt. The contract is worth around €1.2 billion, with Rheinmetall accounting €607 million, Diehl for €339 million, and Hensoldt for €284 million.
The core objective of the LVS NNbS development project is to optimize medium-range air defence as well as developing high-mobility air defence capabilities for protecting manoeuvre forces from aerial threats – even when on the move.
Key objectives include achieving the necessary networking of individual components; integration of the medium-range IRIS T-SLM guided missile; assuring interoperability; and extending the intercept zone to include short-range threats.
Networking will enable connection to the IRIS T-SLM fire units currently under procurement as well as to the Skyranger 30 ground-based mobile air defence system, to be procured in future.
The project is in the hands of the German defence industry; ARGE NNbS is the German government’s contract partner.
