MBDA and Saab Awarded Estonian Very Short Range Air Defense Contract

Released on Wednesday, February 28, 2007

On February 28, the Estonian government signed the contract for the new Estonian Air Defence System VSHORADMS (Very Short Range Air Defence Missile System). The contract was awarded to MBDA and Saab after an international competition between leading European and US defence companies. The total contract value for Saab and MBDA is around €60 million. With this VSHORADMS Estonia will get a modern and well-proven solution for ground based air defence.

The VSHORADMS is based on MISTRAL missiles from MBDA, Giraffe AMB radars, Command and Control centers and Communication System including NATO links from Saab Microwave Systems. The Estonian solution will be one in a row of system integrations between MISTRAL and Giraffe.

Mikael Johannison, head of Sales for Baltic & Central Europe at Saab Microwave Systems, says: "Estonia�s selection of Saab for this contract is an important milestone for us in providing tailor-made GBAD (Ground Based Air Defence) systems and will consolidate our position as a world leading supplier of integrated system solutions for ground based air defence."

The 3D Multirole search and surveillance radar Giraffe AMB, which is a vital part of the system, belongs to the latest generation of Saab�s ground based surveillance radars. Giraffe AMB has been the choice for a number of customers before Estonia. The delivered VSHORADMS system will be fully NATO compatible by using NATO data links such as Link 11B and LLAPI integrated by Saab Microwave Systems.

Saab serves the global market with world-leading products, services and solutions ranging from military defence to civil security. Saab has operations and employees on all continents and constantly develops, adopts and improves new technology to meet customers� changing needs.