New deals create new jobs in the Israeli defense companies, to staff the expanding production lines. All this, while the marketing teams skip between the countries of the world to take advantage of the demand. At the same time, outside of Israel, in Turkey they are not satisfied with F-16 planes, fake components have been installed in American fighter planes, in Germany they are calling for a dramatic increase in the defense budget, and India is launching a new attack drone. All this in the weekly defense industries corner.
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The security company that opened a massive recruitment of employees
The government defense company Tomer, which develops rocket propulsion, among other things, for missile engines and interceptors, is currently hiring about 60 new employees – after the beginning of the war it had hired about 65 additional employees. This is how Globes first learned. The 60 new jobs that are intended for the development boom and the expansion of the production lines, include engineers, research and development personnel, and special professions. Batumer points out that they receive keen interest from engineers and research workers who prefer to work in the defense industry.
Unprecedented transactions such as the historic sale of Arrow 3 to Germany for NIS 14 billion led to increased demand for Israeli-made defense products, alongside the impact of various events around the world, centered on: the Russia-Ukraine war, the tensions with China in the Asia-Pacific region, and of course the war of iron swords.
Just as IAI profited enormously in terms of its concepts from the Arrow 3 deal, so too in Tomer – where it is said that the company’s production lines were recently expanded also in the area of Arrow engines in light of the deal with Germany. At the same time, new production lines were opened in order to meet the demand for engines for precision missiles for a variety of ranges from 30 to 300 km, including: engines for Elbit, Lance, Extra and Rampig missiles, as well as for the Barak MX interceptor of the Aerospace Industry.
First international order for Elbit Crossbow
Elbit announced that it won a contract in the amount of approximately 53 million dollars for the supply of 120 mm unmanned turret mortar systems with a soft recoil mechanism, the Crossbow, for installation on the Pandor 6 X6 APCs of a European customer. The contract will be executed over a period of six years.
This contract is the first to be signed for the supply of the Crossbow system since its first presentation at the DSEI exhibition held in London in 2023. Elbit’s Crossbow provides high-level protection and survivability for the mortar crew and includes a rapid close-fire capability, being able to fire the first PM in less from 30 seconds. The system has a maximum rate of 10 shells per minute, with an average rate of six shells per minute. A variety of NATO-approved 120 mm ammunition types can be fired, including the “Steel Sting” guided mortar, which provides an effective range of up to 10 kilometers. Index loading is not required for the Crossbow turret, which offers 360 degree capabilities.
The American embarrassment of intercepting the Iranian attack
The Iranian attack on April 14 was not only historic in its success for Israel, but also for the United States. As part of that attack, the US Navy ships stationed in the eastern Mediterranean, USS Earle Barak and USS Carney, made the first operational interceptions of ballistic missiles 7-4 Using SM-3 missiles launched from the Agis system in the Iranian attack against Israel.
However, this attack has now also led to an American embarrassment, and this for two reasons: first, the price of each interceptor is 12.5-28 million dollars, for the sake of comparison – the Arrow 3 interceptor is valued at about 2 million dollars “only”. Second, the annual production rate of SM-3 interceptors is expected to be only 12 units until 2029. That is, a relatively small ballistic missile attack is enough to cover the entire annual production rate.
Will Arrow 3 systems be stationed in the UK?
Britain is in talks regarding the possibility of entering the Sky Shield air defense system program – Defense Secretary Grant Shapps confirmed in a conversation with the British “Sun”. According to the report, London’s joining the array may lead to a situation where Arrow 3 missiles produced by the Aerospace Industry will be stationed on the kingdom’s soil, alongside other systems such as the American Patriot or Iris-T missiles produced in Germany.
The European Air Defense Program was initiated by German Chancellor Olaf Schulz in 2022, in response to a threat from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Currently, 21 countries are involved in the Sky Shield project, including neutral Switzerland.
The synchronization of Sky Shield between different countries is expected to lead to a reduction of costs in investments in the accumulation of power, because all countries will purchase systems and adapt them among themselves. For Britain, which is increasing its defense budgets for the coming years, this is an important issue. According to planning in London, the defense budget is expected to grow by 75 billion pounds (about 94 billion dollars) by 2030 and reach 2.5% of GDP.
In Turkey, F-16s are not enough
Turkey is expected in the near future to sign an agreement in the amount of 20 billion dollars to purchase F-16 aircraft and upgrade the existing ones. In addition, Defense Minister Yasar Guler said in an interview with CNN in Turkish that Ankara is still interested in Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft. Until now, Germany has prevented the sale due to the Turkish policy against Israel.
“The Eurofighter is not the exclusive property of our allies in Germany,” Guler said in an interview. “We also have an interest in these planes, but there are certain problems that our friends in Germany are struggling with, which we, as NATO members, do not accept. We were clear about that. I am sure that these issues will be resolved soon, and it is possible that the Eurofighter sales to Saudi Arabia will be a catalyst for a solution.”
Beyond that, although Turkey was removed from the F-35 program already in the Trump era due to its insistence on purchasing S-400 air defense systems from Russia, the Turkish Defense Minister insists that the issue is “still on the agenda”. According to him, the development of the locally produced fifth generation fighter jet “Kaan” is also underway.
Counterfeit components were installed in American fighter jets
A Turkish-American citizen who lives in Florida, Onor Aksoy, was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison in the US, for establishing dozens of straw companies and selling fake network equipment made by Cisco to the US military. The components were even installed on F-15, F-18 and F-22 fighter jets.
Exoy founded at least 19 companies in New Jersey and Florida, 15 stores on Amazon and ten more on eBay. As part of his method, he imported tens of thousands of low-quality computer network devices from suppliers in China and Hong Kong. The brand decals, labels and packaging have been replaced with counterfeit Cisco trademarks. Thus, he made the potential customers think that these are original products. The prices of those products, when they are real, are more than 100 million dollars, while according to estimates, Exoi pocketed revenues in the amount of millions of dollars.
“Through a long and sophisticated scheme, Aksoy created and ran one of the largest counterfeiting operations ever,” said prosecutor Vikas Khanna of the New Jersey State Attorney’s Office. “His activity led to the introduction of tens of thousands of counterfeit devices from China into the US supply chains, endangering the users – including very sensitive ones in the US military, such as fighter jets.”
A call for a dramatic increase in the German defense budget
NATO’s goal of setting alliance member defense budgets at 2% of GDP is not enough for Germany to rebuild its military from years of neglect. This is what the CEO of Rheinmetall, Armin Pafferger, told the Association of Economic Journalists (WPV) in Dusseldorf. According to him, in Berlin they need to add at least another 30 billion euros to the defense budget of 68.58 billion euros. That is, another increase of 43%.
On the issue of shells, a very sensitive issue in all Western countries, Paferger pointed out that until the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war there were 4 million shells in the warehouses of the German army. These shells were fired, and the CEO of Rheinmetall notes that “we were unable to put anything into our warehouses for two years” – a situation similar to that in France, Italy and Spain.
Today, Germany’s shell production rate is only 70,000 units per year, with Paferger saying that his company is ready to build production facilities in Germany, Romania and Lithuania to increase the rate to 1.1 million units per year.
India’s new attack drone
The Indian defense and aerospace technology company Flying Wedge unveiled in Bangalore the FWD-200B – the first attack drone designed and manufactured in India. The drone is designed to operate at medium altitude and for long operational ranges.
The new UAV is capable of carrying 100 kg, so it can be used for both advanced collection means and heavy armaments.
Suhas Tejaskanda, founder of Flying Wedge, noted that the successful result was obtained after quite a few failures of various Indian bodies, such as DRDO, the defense research and development body of the Indian government (equivalent of MPAAT and SBT in Israel).
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