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European industry is sending a clear message across the Atlantic: the era of US domination in airborne guided weapons is over
It has been a long time coming, but the backlash is about to hit home with a vengeance. The US AIM-9 Sidewinder has dominated the short range air-to-air missile market for more than four decades. In its various guises, the AIM-9 has sold worldwide by the thousand. One of its biggest bloc markets, indeed, has been the continent of Europe, where NATO and non-aligned air forces have procured it in vast numbers.
Though the Sidewinder is destined to live on as the AIM-9X, a follow-on variant recently ordered into development by the US Air Force, Europe's leading industrialised nations have chosen a different path. Over the past decade, three different shortrange systems have been ordered into development by seven European nations. In the medium-range market, which is still dominated by the US AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), another battle is brewing. Here, an all-European grouping is bidding for business against a US-led consortium. In both the short and the long range air-to-air fields, European manufacturers are intent on sending a clear message to their counterparts across the Atlantic: the era of US domination in the airborne guided weapons market is over.
Budget strains
In the post-Cold War world, European defence budgets should be, on the face of it, incapable of sustaining such an outburst of seemingly overlapping effort. The AngloFrench weapons joint venture, Matra British Aerospace Dynamics, has two new offerings in the fixed-wing short range airto-air weapons market: Mica (Missile d'Interception, de Combat et d'Autodefense) and ASRAAM (the Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile). Bodenseewerk Geratetechnik (BGT) of Germany, meanwhile, and its industrial partners in Greece, Italy, Norway and Sweden (Canada is the sixth partner nation) are developing IRIS-T. Mica has recently become operational. ASRAAM is due in service next year. IRIS-T is scheduled for service entry in 2002. The answer to this preponderance of parallel programmes lies within shifting influences on a much larger scale. Mica and ASRAAM were already well into their development phases when the spate of mega-mergers began amongst US defence contractors in the mid- 1990s. In 1996, in response to what was happening across the...
