Rafael expanding relationship with Indian defence industry
Rafael’s long-standing relationship with the Indian defence industry and military is of strategic significance to both Israel and India and to their industries. Many of Rafael’s systems are in use by the Indian military, two of which are Litening – an advanced airborne electrooptical Pod, in use by more than 20 air forces around the world, mounted on a variety of fighter aircraft, and SPYDER – a ground air-defence system, based on the Python and Derby interceptors to defend against aerial threats.
Together with the Israeli Aerospace Industry (IAI) and with the defence Research and development Organisation (DRDO), Rafael is working on development of the Barak-8, the next generation of naval air defence. One of Rafael’s main strategic endeavours is to bolster its cooperation with the DRDO, as well as with other leading defence industries in India. We are engaged in joint ventures and partnerships with local Indian industries such as Mahindra, BDL and BEL and are on constant search to expand our activities in the country, in cooperation with the DRDO, in order to better address local needs and requirements. We consider India a strategic partner to Rafael, and as such, we will continue to offer it our wide variety of systems and capabilities, including knowledge and productions transfer, while taking into consideration the prolonged nature of procurement processes in the industry. Rafael holds dozens of partnerships and cooperation agreements with many countries, including with the US, countries in Europe, Asia, South America and others. More than 60 per cent of our business is international. Some of Rafael’s systems in use by the Indian military include the Barak naval missile defence system.
Changes in today’s battlefield coupled with Rafael’s innovation, particularly in missile technology, have resulted in the development of world-leading advanced defence systems, some of which are operationally deployed.
Rafael, with its proven building blocks, is one of the few worldwide vendors that can provide an end-to-end solution based on extensive knowledge and experience that has been gained over the last 60 years in providing aerial networks, applications and communication solutions. Rafael’s systems are discriminate, precise and proportional, which in turn makes them economic, efficient and effective. Such is, for example, Rafael’s Spike Missile Family of tactical, precise missiles with ranges of 0-25 km that can be launched from either naval vessels, helicopters or ground vehicles. Another example is Rafael’s Spice air-to-ground precision guided bombs with stand-off ranges of more than 60 km.
Rafael is a world pioneer in armour active protection system, and in the last few years, Rafael’s famous passive and reactive armour systems have been joined by the Trophy, an active protection system that rapidly detects and tracks any anti-tank threat, classifies it, estimates the optimal intercept point in space and finally neutralises it away from the platform using a countermeasure. The Trophy Family comes in two main configurations: HV-MV (heavy and medium armoured vehicle) and LV (light armoured vehicle). Both configurations dramatically boost the force’s survivability, and provide a vital add-on capability for the manoeuvring combat teams.
In addition, it has also developed the SpotLite-P and Spotlite-M, combat proven electro-optical systems for detecting, locating, investigating and neutralising small-arms fire sources, RPG and ATGM.
Rafael is also a leading C4I supplier for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and various worldwide forces.