TSAMTO, November 23. The Slovak Ministry of Defense has approved several projects for the purchase of short-range and medium-range anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as small arms.
Publication Euro-SD.com publishes excerpts from documents of the Slovak Ministry of Defense submitted by Slovak columnist Martin Smisek, which have not previously been covered in the open press.
In particular, at a meeting on October 4, 2023, the Government of the Slovak Republic approved negotiations on the supply of new anti-aircraft missile systems as part of the first stage of modernization of the ground-based air defense system. In addition, at the same meeting, the Slovak Ministry of Defense informed the government about the purchase of automatic rifles in the United States under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program.
As M. Smisek recalls, on May 31, 2023, the Slovak Ministry of Defense sent out requests for proposals to the ambassadors of 11 selected countries with the appropriate production capacity for the supply of man-portable air defense missile systems (MANPADS) and mobile medium-range anti-aircraft missile systems (MRSAM-M). The deadline for accepting tender proposals is July 31, 2023.
In total, four proposals were received from four countries on MANPADS and four proposals from three countries on MRSAM-M. In August 2023, a project team consisting of approximately 60 experts from the Slovak Ministry of Defense evaluated applications based on pre-announced evaluation criteria in the field of technical capabilities (specific weight of the criterion: 35%), purchase price (15%), life cycle cost (25%), delivery time (15%), preparation of calculations (5%), attracting domestic industry (5%).
The breakdown below shows the proposals for MANPADS (the number of proposed units; the total evaluation by criteria as a percentage; the total cost of the package in millions of euros):
Saab Dynamics (Sweden) RBS-70 NG: 12 units (86%), 39.514 million euros;
MESKO (Poland) "Perun": 36 units (76%), 65,883 million euros;
MBDA (France) "Mistral-3": 12 units. (75%), 35.0 million euros;
LIG Nex1 (Republic of Korea) "Chiron": 12 units. (72%), 30.952 million euros.
Results of evaluation of the received proposals for MRSAM-M:
Israel Aerospace Industries (Israel) Barak MX: 3 units of 8 rockets each (95%) 128,102 million euros;
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems (Israel) SPYDER: 3 units of 8 missiles each (84%) 149.534 million euros;
Diehl Defense (Germany) IRIS-T SLM: 4 units of 8 missiles each (72%) 200.339 million euros;
MBDA (France) VL MICA: 3 units of 4 missiles each (65%) 169,226 million euros.
Poland's proposal for MANPADS took second place in the assessment of the Slovak Ministry of Defense, but it provides a significant operational advantage due to three times the number of launchers compared to other proposals, as well as ammunition. Moreover, it was the only MANPADS proposal conceptually similar to the existing 9K38 Igla. Thus, the Slovak Ministry of Defense should begin negotiations with the Polish government on the preparation of the necessary contract documents for the acquisition of 36 Perun systems.
The Barak MX system of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) took first place in the MRSAM-M category and the Slovak government granted the country's Defense Ministry permission to negotiate with Israel on the supply of one system of this type.
As noted, in the case of MANPADS and MRSAM-M, draft contract documents will need to be submitted for approval to the Government of the Slovak Republic before signing the final contract.