TSAMTO, December 20. Kongsberg Defense and Aerospace AS (Kongsberg) has announced the signing of a contract with the Defense Procurement and Technology Agency Armasuisse for the supply of additional remotely controlled RS4 armament modules of the Protector family for the Swiss Armed Forces.
The cost of the contract and the delivery dates of the DUMV are not disclosed.
The Swiss Armed Forces have been using the Protector family of DUMV for more than 10 years, since the first purchase of these DUMV in 2007. Later, the Swiss Armed Forces purchased additional batches of modules several times. At the moment, Kongsberg has supplied the Swiss Armed Forces with five variants of remotely controlled weapons systems. In 2018, for the maintenance and technical support of modules supplied by the Swiss Armed Forces, Kongsberg created a division of Kongsberg Defense Switzerland AG.
According to the terms of the new contract, the Swiss Armed Forces will receive the newest version of the RS4 family.
RS4 (previously designated M153) is an uninhabited module that can be equipped with a 12.7mm, 7.62 or 5.56 mm machine gun, a 40 mm automatic grenade launcher, an ATGM launcher, a set of optoelectronic devices and a laser rangefinder-designator. The module can rotate 360 degrees, the range of pointing angles by the angle of the place is from -20 to +60 degrees. The mass of the DUMV (without weapons) is 135-190 kg. The situation on the battlefield is displayed on the remote control of the liquid crystal display of the gunner-operator. This design allows the crew to remotely control weapons while remaining inside the BBM, which reduces the risk to the lives of military personnel. Stabilization of weapons ensures high efficiency of firing.
To date, Kongsberg has delivered more than 20 thousand "Protector" modules to 20 countries around the world.
