Sweden will purchase U.S. Patriot air defense missile systems.

Sweden close to sign a deal in the next few weeks to purchase American-made Patriot air defense missile system from the U.S. Company Raytheon. The contract could reach an amount of 10 billion crowns ($1.13 billion) and is the biggest military purchase since 2013 from the Swedish armed forces.

Mobile launcher unit of American Patriot air defense missile system (Picture source Army Recognition)

Since the Swedish parliament settled the defence framework decision 2015, the Swedish Armed Forces (SwAF) and FMV have evaluated different systems to enhance the Swedish air-defence capability with a medium range surface-to-air system. in November 2017, the Swedish government has given go-ahead to FMV (Swedish Materiel Administration) to commence negotiations regarding procurement of the US Patriot system.

According to Joakim Lewin, head of the Army Design Office at the Swedish Materiel Administration (FMV), Sweden is now done negotiating with the U.S. about Patriot and will now ask the government’s permission to sign the contract. The Patriot deal includes four firing units, parts, training and an undisclosed number of missiles.

In option, Sweden could also purchase 300 additional missiles, in this case the final contract will be around $3 billion, said Joakim Lewin.

The U.S. Company Raytheon has built more than 220 Patriot fire units and delivered them to customers in 15 nations including Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Taiwan, Greece, Spain, south Korea, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and United States. Many of those countries have chosen to take advantage of Patriot’s flexible architecture and upgrade their systems.

The government of Romania signed on November 29, 2017, an agreement to purchase seven Patriot Configuration 3+ units, complete with radars, a control station, antennas, launching stations and power plants. In November 2017, the U.S. State Department approved a $10.5 billion sale of four Patriot missile defense system to Poland.

The MIM-104 Patriot is a surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, the primary of its kind used by the United States Army and several allied nations. Patriot uses an advanced aerial interceptor missile and high performance radar systems. The latest generation of Patriot launcher uses the PAC-3 missile produced by the Company Lockheed Martin. The PAC-3 Missile is a high velocity interceptor that defeats incoming targets by direct, body-to-body impact. The PAC-3 can be used to intercept ballistic missiles with a range from 15 to 20 km.