On 31 October, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace signed a contract with the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency worth 583 MNOK (64.18 Mn USD) to deliver Mobile Ground-Based Air Defense to the Norwegian Army. The Army Mobile Ground Based Air Defence System was first presented by the Defence Minister in February 2017 as a direct acquisition process with Kongsberg.

Sketch illustrating the concept of the Mobile Ground Based Air Defence to the Norwegian Army (Picture source: Kongsberg)

The Army Mobile Ground Based Air Defence System is a highly mobile, short-range air defence system that will reuse key capabilities from the NASAMS system to include its command and control and unique network solutions. In addition to elements from the NASAMS, this highly mobile air defence system includes the IRIS-T missile from Diehl Defence GmbH and a radar from Weibel Scientific A/S. NASAMS (National/Norwegian Advanced Surface to Air Missile System) is a distributed and networked medium to long-range air-defence system. NASAMS was the first surface-based application for the AIM-120 AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile). The missile itself is named SLAMRAAM (Surface-Launched AMRAAM)

«The Army Mobile Ground-Based Air Defence System provides the Norwegian Army a unique capability to provide air defence throughout their maneuver operations. We are very pleased that the addition of the Army Mobile Ground Based Air Defence System in the Norwegian forces, along with the existing NASAMS air defence system, provides both the Norwegian Army and the Air Force extremely advanced air defence systems from Kongsberg”, says Eirik Lie, President Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace AS.