Finnish Ministry of Defence clears procurement of short and long-range Spike antitank missiles.

The Finnish Ministry of Defence authorised the Defence Forces to order Spike SR, LR2 and ER2 missile systems. The procurement was implemented through NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) and the Land Combat Missiles partnership programme. The product manufacturer is Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
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Israeli company Rafael displayed its latest generation of Spike missiles at DEFEA 2021 in Greece (Picture source: Army Recognition)

The procurement also includes munitions, training equipment, maintenance equipment, training, documentation and spare parts. Delivery equipment for the systems will be procured through a separate procurement in Finland.

The overall value of the procurement, without value-added tax, is EUR 223.6 million. Spike SR and LR2 are procured to complement the anti-tank capabilities as part of the Army’s critical additional procurements. The procurement will increase the number of Spike LR missiles in the PSTOHJ2000M system and the new features of the Spike SR missiles that are procured for the first time will improve the capabilities of anti-tank troops.

The ER2 system procured for the Navy is a medium/long-range system suitable for coastal troops, capable of having an impact on vessels and buildings. The systems will be maintained in cooperation with the strategic partner supplier Millog Oy.

Spike is a fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missile and anti-personnel missile with a tandem-charge high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead. It is available in man-portable, vehicle-launched, and helicopter-launched variants. The missile can engage and destroy targets within the line-of-sight of the launcher ("fire-and-forget"), and some variants can make a top attack through a "fire, observe and update" method (essentially lock-on after launch); the operator tracking the target, or switching to another target, optically through the trailing fiber-optic wire (or RF link in the case of the vehicle-mounted, long-range NLOS variant) while the missile is climbing to altitude after launch. This is similar to the lofted trajectory flight profile of the US FGM-148 Javelin.