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Defence & Security News - Saudi Arabia
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| Secret purchaser of Raytheon Patriot Missile system is Saudi Arabia | |||
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Last week, Raytheon Company announced it has been awarded a contract worth over $2.0 billion to deliver the combat-proven Patriot Air and Missile Defense System to an undisclosed international customer. Yesterday April 23, Raytheon confirmed the customer is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
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 With more than 200 fire units fielded worldwide, Patriot is a system of choice for 12 nations around the globe (Raytheon) |
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The contract, awarded on April 2, 2015 and booked in the second quarter as a direct commercial sale, includes fully digitized new-production Patriot fire units with the latest technology for improved threat detection, identification and engagement. The contract also includes a full training package and support equipment. "In the past five months Qatar, Korea and now this international partner have all chosen Raytheon's Global Patriot solution because they have confidence in the world's most advanced air and missile defense system," said Daniel J. Crowley, president of Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. "Including this most recent contract, Raytheon has booked more than $5 billion in international Patriot orders since late December 2014." In its latest variant, the Patriot carried with it a new missile design, nominally known as MIM-104F and called PAC-3 by the US Army. Due to miniaturization, a single canister can hold four PAC-3 missiles (as opposed to one PAC-2 missile per canister). The PAC-3 upgrade has effectively quintupled the "footprint" that a Patriot unit can defend against ballistic missiles of all types, and has considerably increased the system's lethality and effectiveness against ballistic missiles. It has also increased the scope of ballistic missiles that Patriot can engage, which now includes several intermediate range. |
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