The SAAF Forum

NEW MILESTONE FOR GROUND-BASED AIR DEFENCE SYSTEM

22 March 2012

The SA Army’s new Ground-based Air Defence system has moved another step closer to operational readiness following the completion of a major milestone in its development.

Ralph Mills, the CEO of Denel Integrated Systems Solutions (DISS) says the company has successfully completed the contractual hardware delivery requirements for the Ground-Based Air Defence System (GBADS).

“The SA Army will now take the equipment on inventory and initiate the commissioning phase of the programme. This will take the system to operational readiness with support from Denel,” he says.

DISS is a division of the defence manufacturing group Denel. It was established with the sole purpose of supporting the SANDF in the acquisition of its Ground-Based Air Defence System – known as Project Guardian.

The delivery of the project follows extensive evaluation and testing conducted last year at the Swartkop Air Field in Tshwane and the Combat Training Centre at Lohatla in the Northern Cape. Soldiers from the Air Defence Artillery Formation assisted during the tests. The formation will be responsible for the deployment of the GBADS in anti-aircraft operations.

Mills says he is “extremely proud of the team” for reaching this milestone and thanked the Integrated Project Team consisting of members from both the Department of Defence and Armscor for their contribution to the programme.

System Integration skills have been identified as a key strategic capability for our country and in DISS we now have the basis to build on these crucial skills,” says Mills. One of the programmes in progress at DISS is the development of young system engineers who are trained and mentored in the discipline of System Engineering.

System Engineering as a discipline can contribute to many areas of our society and it is critical that we start developing the human capital now to be ready for the programs of the future,” says Mills.

Riaz Saloojee, Group CEO congratulated the DISS team on achieving this milestone. Saloojee indicated that “the successful finalisation of this phase of the programme had positioned DISS well for subsequent stages and the company is now in a position to expand into other domains”.

ends

So what dose project guardian give us exactly.

So no mobil guns system.

The existing mobile AA guns consist of towed twin 35mm Oerlikons (no idea how many?)

The press release is a bit vague.

48 were allegedly upgraded to the 5 standard.

Truck mounted Umkhonto SAMs.

Yes, but what is happening to the land-based Umkonto SAM?