Saudi Arabia eyes Rheinmetall's Skyranger 30 air defense system to stop growing drone threats.

Saudi Arabia is currently reviewing Rheinmetall’s Skyranger 30 air defense system, as Riyadh seeks mobile and cost-effective systems to counter low-altitude drone and missile threats affecting energy infrastructure, border regions, and critical sites.

As reported by Tactical Report on November 12, 2025, Saudi Arabia remains in talks with Germany to participate in the development of German laser-based counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS) while keeping its interest in Rheinmetall’s Skyranger 30 short-range air defence system and TKMS' MEKO A-200 frigate. A delegation from Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI)' Land Systems division had visited Rheinmetall’s facility in Kassel in recent months, confirming that industrial contacts are active.
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Riyadh is currently seeking mobile and cost-effective systems such as the Skyranger 30 that can address low-altitude drone and missile threats affecting energy infrastructure, border regions, and critical sites. (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Saudi Arabia’s short-range air defence layer currently rests on a mix of legacy surface-to-air missile systems, very short-range launchers, and gun-based assets that were originally structured for earlier generations of threats. The Royal Saudi Air Defence Forces operate 128 launchers of the improved Hawk system in 16 battalions, around 40 units of the French-designed Crotale system, and 141 units of the Shahine system (a localised Crotale variant adapted for desert conditions) in 17 battalions. Saudi Arabia has also started fielding anti-drone tools, including jamming sensors and laser weapons, in both mobile and fixed roles. However, Ukraine's experience with swarm drone attacks, cruise missiles, and low-flying missile threats has shown that older force structures, even when multi-layered, can struggle against such numerous threats. As a result, Riyadh has explored European medium and short-range air defence systems as potentially more cost-effective complements to high-value U.S. interceptors, particularly in the context of growing drone use in regional conflicts and the need to control expenditure on long-range missiles.

Attacks by the Houthis in Yemen, missile launches from regional adversaries, and the need to secure expanding industrial and energy infrastructure under Vision 2030 have all highlighted the importance of being able to detect, track, and engage drones and cruise missiles that operate at low altitude, slower speed, and use terrain or clutter to reduce detection. While new high altitude and anti-ballistic capabilities, including the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system introduced from 2025, reinforce the upper layers of the national air defence, they do not remove the need for modern short-range and very short-range systems close to defended assets. Short-range systems are assigned to protect oil processing facilities, airports, ports, industrial zones, and major urban centres, as well as to support mobile forces and border areas exposed to cross-border drone and missile strikes. This has led to an emphasis on mobile systems such as the Skyranger 30, combining guns, missiles, and sensors that can follow maneuvering units and be tied into early warning networks and command and control architectures.

The Skyranger 30 itself is a very short-range air defence turret system developed by Rheinmetall Air Defence AG, formerly Oerlikon Contraves, and derived from the earlier Skyranger 35 to provide a lighter solution suitable for a broader set of platforms. Conceptual design began around 2018 under Rheinmetall’s product management team led by Michael Gerber and Moritz Vischer, who conducted detailed analyses of ammunition effects, effective range, turret dimensions, and cost, and concluded that a 30×173 millimetre KCE revolver cannon would offer a balanced trade-off between firepower and weight. A Skyranger 30 A0 concept demonstrator was built from 2020 to reduce development risks and support marketing, serving as a platform to integrate subsystems such as the Rapid Obscuring System smoke launchers and the FIRST infrared search and track sensor.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rheinmetall unveiled the turret during an online event on December 16, 2020, and later presented it at the ILA 2022 air show in Berlin mounted on a Boxer 8×8 vehicle. In December 2023, the Skyranger 30 A1 development testbed conducted live fire trials at the Ochsenboden proving ground in both stationary and mobile modes, and total system qualification of the Skyranger 30 A3 version was expected around mid-2024. In February 2024, the German government ordered one Boxer-based verification model and 18 series production Skyranger 30 vehicles for around €595 million, with serial deliveries planned in 2027 and 2028, and Rheinmetall delivered the verification model to the Bundeswehr in January 2025.

In parallel, MBDA’s DefendAir anti-drone missile, derived from the Enforcer lightweight missile, entered development under a contract of about €490 million approved in autumn 2025, with series production planned from 2029 and deliveries from 2030, making DefendAir the dedicated missile effector for Skyranger 30 under the NNbS project and a component of Germany’s contribution to the European Sky Shield Initiative. In terms of weaponry, the Skyranger 30 is built around the 30×173 millimetre Oerlikon Revolver Cannon KCE, which is an evolution of the aircraft-mounted Oerlikon KCA adapted to fire programmable airburst ammunition. The cannon has a nominal rate of fire of about 1,200 rounds per minute, a rapid single-shot mode of approximately 200 rounds per minute, and a barrel length of 2,126 millimetres, corresponding to 80 calibres, with a mean muzzle velocity of about 1,075 metres per second for both airburst and full calibre rounds.

The effective range of the gun against aerial targets is around 3 kilometres, and the turret typically carries between 252 and 300 ready-to-fire 30 millimetre rounds. Ammunition types include programmable airburst KETF, high-explosive incendiary tracer, frangible armour-piercing, target practice tracer, and armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot tracer (APFSDS-T), with airburst ammunition based on the AHEAD family. For instance, the PMC308 round contains 162 tungsten cylinders as subprojectiles with a total projectile mass of about 201 grams, while the PMC455 variant under development is expected to contain around 500 smaller tungsten cylinders for the same weight, increasing fragment density around the target volume. In addition to the gun, Skyranger 30 can integrate very short-range missiles, including quad launchers for FIM 92 Stinger, dual or quad launchers for Mistral 3, Halcon’s SkyKnight missile, and between nine and twelve MBDA’s DefendAir small anti-drone missiles, previously known as SADM.

These missiles have engagement ranges of about 5 kilometres for Stinger, 8 kilometres for Mistral 3, more than 5 kilometres for MBDA’s DefendAir, and up to around 10 kilometres and 6,000 metres altitude for SkyKnight, depending on configuration. The DefendAir is also tailored for Class 1 unmanned aerial systems up to 150 kilograms, using a specific seeker and fragmentation warhead and an additional booster that extends its envelope to around 5 to 6 kilometres. Rheinmetall has also developed a Skyranger 30 high-energy laser (HEL) variant, with current technology demonstrators achieving around 20 kilowatt output and initial plans for 20 to 50 kilowatt systems, with a longer-term goal of reaching 100 kilowatt, providing a non-kinetic option against small aerial targets.

The Skyranger 30 turret can be equipped with the Rheinmetall Italia AMMR S band AESA multi mission radar, which provides instrumented ranges of more than 20 kilometres against a one square metre radar cross section aircraft, about 12 kilometres against hovering helicopters, 10 kilometres against missiles and 5 kilometres against rockets, artillery, mortar rounds and micro unmanned systems, using four to five flat antennas integrated around the turret for 360 degree coverage and elevation from about minus 5 to plus 85 degrees. Alternatively, users can select the Hensoldt Spexer 2000M 3D MkIII X-band AESA radar, which uses three flat antennas to cover 360 degrees and a smaller frontal panel for target tracking and offers detection ranges of around 27 kilometres for light aircraft, 36 kilometres for low-level helicopters, 9 kilometres for small UAVs, and 6 kilometres for micro UAVs.

For passive detection, the Skyranger 30 uses Rheinmetall’s FIRST fast infrared search and track sensor, optimised to detect pop-up targets such as helicopters, and a compact target tracker that includes a cooled mid-wave infrared thermal camera, a full HD TV camera, and two laser rangefinders, one dedicated to air targets and one to land targets. A contract worth about 5 million euros signed in May 2025 with Lumibird Photonics Sweden AB covers the delivery of Vidar laser rangefinders for Skyranger 30 between 2025 and 2028, while Curtis Wright Switzerland provides gyroscopes and power management technology used to stabilise the gun and manage turret power. The Skymaster command and control architecture fuses radar and electro-optical data, supports automatic target detection, acquisition, and tracking, and allows Skyranger 30 to receive target designations from longer range surveillance radars, remote electro-optical sensors, or medium altitude unmanned platforms.

The turret and platform integration aspects of Skyranger 30 are designed to maximise flexibility and compatibility with existing vehicles in different armies. The unmanned turret weighs about 1,500 to 2,000 kilograms without ammunition and 1,800 to 2,300 kilograms with ammunition, has a swept radius of approximately 3,634 millimetres with the barrel at zero elevation and uses a 1.414 metre diameter turret ring compatible with the Skyranger 35. It can be mounted on 6×6 wheeled vehicles, 8×8 armoured personnel carriers, tracked infantry fighting vehicles and some unmanned ground vehicles. Rheinmetall has shown Skyranger 30 on Boxer 8×8 vehicles, on Pandur EVO 6×6 for Austria, on Piranha V 8×8 for Denmark, on ACSV tracked chassis for the Netherlands and as a mock up on the M5 Ripsaw unmanned ground vehicle and Indonesia’s Badak 6×6.

The turret has no basket, uses two operator consoles inside the carrier vehicle for commander and gunner, and can be equipped with two ROSY smoke grenade launchers each carrying nine or ten grenades, with ballistic protection reaching STANAG 4569 Level 2 as standard and upgradable to Level 4 with additional armour. In some early configurations a coaxial 7.62 millimetre machine gun and a roof hatch for the vehicle commander were included, although these features do not appear on all later production turrets. According to Rheinmetall data, the system offers an effective engagement range of up to 3,000 metres with the gun and about 6,000 metres with integrated short range missiles, uses around 252 ready to fire 30 millimetre rounds and 1,000 rounds of 7.62 millimetre ammunition and integrates a 360 degree AESA search radar, FIRST infrared scanner, stabilised electro optical sensor unit and optional Ku band or X band tracking radar.

For now, Germany ordered 19 Skyranger 30 systems on Boxer vehicles in February 2024 for about €595 million, and has indicated an intention to eventually acquire between 500 and 600 systems in total as part of its contribution to the European Sky Shield Initiative. Austria ordered 36 Skyranger 30 systems on Pandur EVO 6×6 in February 2024, with an option for nine more and Mistral 3 as the chosen missile, and reduced turret weight by about one tonne with only two missiles because of chassis load limits. For its part, Denmark selected 16 Skyranger 30 turrets on Piranha V in 2023, including four prototypes and pre-production turrets to be delivered by the end of 2026 and 12 systems to be delivered in 2027 and 2028, also with Mistral 3. The Netherlands plans to acquire 22 Skyranger 30 systems on ACSV tracked platforms, with contract signature expected in 2025 and the first deliveries planned for 2028.

Belgium intends to purchase around 20 Skyranger systems under its Strategic Vision 2025, a plan that foresees €34.2 billion in defence investments between 2026 and 2034, including Skyranger for the short range mobile layer, ten NASAMS batteries, potential long-range Patriot or SAMP-T systems via joint procurement with the Netherlands, 200 to 300 Piorun man portable missiles and multinational Mistral 3 purchases with France, Estonia, Cyprus and Hungary. Hungary signed a memorandum of understanding in 2021 for a Lynx KF41-based air defence vehicle with Skyranger 30 turrets and Mistral missiles and awarded Rheinmetall a development contract of about 30 million euros, with unconfirmed reports of a planned fleet of 18 vehicles and initial deliveries around 2025 or 2026. Italy is planning an air defence Lynx variant with a cannon turret, Lithuania is evaluating Skyranger 30, and the United States has been offered the system in 2024 as an anti-air cannon platform with possible local production in partnership with Lockheed Martin. Saudi Arabia, which has not yet signed a contract but maintains interest in Skyranger 30, is therefore watching for a system that is moving into service in several NATO countries.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.