HERSTAL, Belgium — Thales Belgium has “more than doubled” its guided rocket production capacity in response to increased demand after the conflict in the Middle East, and company officials expect to produce annually 20K by 2028, a rough average of 100 guided rockets per day.
“We are accelerating and changing the numbers. If we were talking together a few months back, before what’s happening in the Middle East, in fact, the numbers were not in the same. We more than doubled the number, considering the situation at the moment in the Middle East,” Thomas Colinet Managing Director at Thales Belgium told Breaking Defense in an interview last week.
He added that Thales is getting prepared “to support the Middle East in quantities, in mass production with cost-effective solution, that’s key for us to be really in a structure of make to stock,” he said pointing that now Thales Belgium is “in a process of making to stock to be ready when all the requests will come.”
During a media tour to Thales Belgium’s facilities in Herstal and Fort d’Evegnée where the company produces its 70 mm guided and unguided rockets, journalists saw the production lines that build the system, from chips and fuses to rocket head, eye and motor. A firing test of the guided rocket also took place during the tour. (Like other media outlets, Breaking Defense accepted travel and accommodation from the Thales for the trip.)
The 70 mm guided rocket is part of Skydefender integrated air and missiles defense platform, a concept similar to Steel Dome’s concept in Turkey and Iron Dome’s concept in Israel. Thales officials told Breaking Defense during the tour that the rocket’s price is about one-tenth that of a higher-end missile, which makes it suitable for counter drone missions.
Alain Quevrin, Thales vice president and country director of Belgium & Luxembourg, said they are “receiving” requests from Gulf states for the weapons, which he said could be fired for both ground-to-air and air-to-air counter-drone missions.
The 70 mm guided rocket follows a laser designator from the same platform it is launched from, whether a UAV or fighter jet or a ground vehicle, and it keeps track of the laser until it hits the target. Company officials told Breaking Defense that they are continuously upgrading the missile for precise targeting.
A “key point [is] the interest for having European, non-US solution,” in the Gulf, said Quevrin, who acknowledged that a willingness to produce locally will be vital to breaking into the lucrative regional market.
The company is open for technology transfer in future stages of cooperation, and “we are discussing with our local authorities in order to do that, which is more and more possible, so which is a good point for us.”
“In the future, for sure, we are understanding that this kind of requirement [technology transfer] will be on the table, and by definition, we are ready to open the discussion regarding these specific requirements, because the local production is really key for a lot of countries, so yes, it is,” he said adding that such localization efforts require “authorization education and training.”
Production of the weapons takes place at the historic Fort d’Evegnée, built to protect Belgium from German invasion in the nineteenth century. There, Breaking Defense saw more than 40 small rooms for production and assembly, with workers doing manual validation test on batches and sub-parts of the rocket. The fins are given particularly rigorous testing, the company said, as those are critical to making sure the rocket’s trajectory can be adjusted until landing on target.
Testing of the rocket takes place between minus 46 degrees Celsius and plus 66 degrees Celsius, in order to validate operational capability in all weather conditions including the hot weather of the Middle East.
