Israeli defense company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. announces that it has been awarded a $200 million contract to provide an Asian country with SPICE 2000 air-to-surface systems, Spike ATGMs, tactical, electro-optically guided missiles, and advanced communication systems. the customer was not revealed but military analysts speculate it to be either Singapore or India, and the Philippine Navy has also been its previous customer in the region. Rafael is a world-leading developer and manufacturer of advanced weapon systems. It provides forefront technological solutions that address the defensive and offensive requirements of the modern battlefield.
SPICE (“Smart, Precise Impact, Cost-Effective”) is a family of stand-off, autonomous, air-to-ground weapon systems that strike targets with pinpoint accuracy and at high attack volumes, independently of GPS navigation, based on autonomous electro-optic Scene-Matching Artificial Intelligence (AI) Algorithms. The SPICE family, operational and combat proven in the Israeli air force and other global users, consists of SPICE-250, SPICE-1000, and SPICE-2000 variants, with ranges of up to 100 km. The SPICE family of air to ground precision munitions have been in news with the strikes by the Indian Mirages in 2019, famously known as ‘Balakot airstrikes’.
The Spike anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) family consists of five variants (SR, MR, LR2, ER2, NLOS) of electro-optical, multi-purpose, multi-platform missiles, with ranges of up to 32 km and fire-and-update capabilities. To-date, Spike has been sold to 35 countries, including 19 NATO nations, with over 33,000 missiles already supplied and more than 6,000 fired in tests and in combat. Spike missiles have been integrated onto 45 different vehicular, helicopter and naval platforms. The Spike is a fourth-generation fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missile akin to the American Javelin system. It has seen successful exports to 35 countries globally, with various versions being developed.
The new contract includes Rafael’s Bnet system, a family of advanced Broadband IP MANET (Mobile Ad-hoc NETwork) Software Defined Radios for tactical operations, supporting the modern digital battlefield’s needs with high-speed, low delay, reliable connectivity for data, voice and video on-the-move. Delivering unprecedented network capacity in terms of data rates, number of users and minimal delay, BNET enables all land, sea and air radio units to participate in a single, seamless, scalable mobile ad hoc network.
