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MEADS, the answer to the Bundeswehr's new air defence concept

Berlin/Munich, 06 May 2002

MEADS meets the requirements of the 'capabilities oriented' air defence concept of the Bundeswehr which has recently been approved in Germany. "MEADS can be deployed within a predetermined time, at a predefined place and with the necessary firepower," emphasised Werner Kaltenegger, President and CEO of EADS/LFK at a meeting of experts in Berlin. "Being the leading German company in the field of ground-based air defence, we are proud to be a major participant in this, the most important transatlantic collaborative venture."

In the framework of a three-year risk reducing phase and under contract to the NATO agency NAMEADSMA, MEADS International is working on the overall design and key components of a future ground-based air defence system. MEADS is the acronym for Medium Extended Air Defence System.

Now that the USA has in the "time phased release plan" undertaken to release for this joint project certain technologies that are essential to TBM defence, the MEADS work can be completed on the basis of a partnership on an equal footing. These tasks are being financed by the USA (55 percent), Germany (28 percent) and Italy (17 percent). The German share in the risk reducing phase amounts to roughly $ US 60 million. The involvement of the companies from the individual nations - EADS/LFK (Germany), MBDA-I (Italy) and Lockheed Martin (USA) - is in line with the percentages of the respective contributions to the costs. The European companies control their activities through the joint venture euroMEADS GmbH which, like Lockheed Martin, has a 50 percent holding in MEADS International Inc.

MEADS offers important advantages compared to the currently available air defence systems. It can be used both for the protection of mobile forces on out-of-area missions and also to support the homeland defence. It is highly mobile and in particular fulfils the present-day air transportability requirements. The radars used provide a 360 degree coverage. The open system architecture of MEADS allows other air defence components to be integrated.

MEADS can be configured in a modular way, which means that there is the possibility of adapting it to the respective air defence capabilities as required. Building upon a basic deployment capability consisting of a command and mission vehicle, a fire control radar unit and a launcher equipped with twelve missiles, a fire unit can be expanded to combat a specific threat. A fully equipped unit will then consist of an air surveillance radar, two fire control radars with generators, two control and mission vehicles, six launcher vehicles, each with twelve guided missiles, and three supply vehicles, each carrying up to ... pallets of twelve missiles. Several such fire units can be controlled from a single group operations centre.

In addition, MEADS has a broad mission spectrum and can be deployed against TBMs, cruise missiles, aircraft, helicopters and HARMs. The operating and personnel costs for MEADS are considerably lower than for the systems currently in operation. For this reason, the investments in this air defence system will be worthwhile in the medium and long term because the development and acquisition costs will be more than offset by the savings when the system is in operation.

EADS/LFK is playing a central role in the design and development of the complete MEADS system. Furthermore, EADS/LFK is investigating the possibilities of further developing the PAC-3 missile and leading the development work on the launching system. A further task is the development of the active antenna for the fire control radar, along with responsibility for the software architecture, the man-machine interface and also the software components of the command centre.

EADS/LFK-Lenkflugkörpersysteme GmbH is a business unit of EADS European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company and is due to be integrated into the European guided missile industry under the leadership of MBDA Missile Systems before the end of this year.

With revenues amounting to EUR 30.8 billion, EADS, which was founded in July 2000, is the world's second largest aerospace company. EADS has a workforce of approximately 102,970. In Germany, EADS employs approximately 38,450 people.

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