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The British Army is planning to field the network
enabled, Ground Based Air Defense (GBAD) system by the year 2007,
to introduce major improvement in its capability to defend against
all types of modern air attacks including combat aircraft, attack
helicopters, cruise missiles and unmanned air vehicles.
GBAD will utilize the existing Rapier Field
Standard C and High Velocity Missile (HVM Starstreak) air defense
systems with an overarching Air Defense Command, Control,
Communication, Computers & Intelligence (ADC4I) structure to
provide earlier identification of targets at longer ranges and
enhanced ability to combat threats. Such system, integrating
legacy weapons systems and supporting assets, is judged to be
essential to enable targets to be identified before they become a
direct threat, to ensure the safety of friendly aircraft and
eliminate fratricide as demonstrated in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)
in 2003.
At the current stage, two teams are competing on
the 1 billion pound program – one is Team Athena, a consortium led
by Lockheed Martin, which comprises Lockheed Martin UK Ltd
Integrated Systems, Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Sensor
Systems, Alenia Marconi Systems, EDS, Westland Helicopters, INSYS
Ltd, System Consultants Services Ltd and Advanced Systems
Architectures Ltd. The other contender is a consortium led by the
European Aeronautic Defense and Space (EADS), comprising EADS (UK)
Ltd, EADS (N&G) and MBDA. Final selection is expected in 2005.
Phase 1 program will aim to achieve the required
improvements incrementally from 2007 to 2010 to match the expected
threat up to 2020. Another prime purpose of the program is to
reduce the running costs of Rapier FSC and HVM by considering
obsolescence issues and changes to existing support and training
arrangements to improve efficiency and thus realize savings.
Replacements for Rapier and HVM will be considered later in the
program (phase 2). It is planned that the GBAD Phase 2 program
will be taken forward collaboratively through a Memorandum of
Understanding signed In 2003 with NATO allies - Germany, France,
Italy, The Netherlands and Norway. |
