What Rheinmetall Italia will produce for Ukraine
Skynex, the very short-range air defense system, is manufactured at the Rheinmetall Italia headquarters in Rome. The company is working on new orders destined for Ukraine. All the details
Rheinmetall Italia working on very short-range air defense systems for Ukraine.
The anti-aircraft system created by the German defense giant Rheinmetall, produced in Italy, inside a Roman plant in the so-called "Tiburtina Valley", is called Skynex.
After being awarded the 182 million euro contract by the German government last year to supply two Skynex systems to Kiev by the end of 2023, partly already delivered to Ukraine, the company is now working on three other Skynex systems bringing the total value of the order at approximately 500 million euros.
Last March 1, the German conglomerate announced the award of a further contract for the supply of Skynex air defense systems "to a European customer", without specifying which one. The systems will improve the customer's ability to defend against airborne threats, Rheinmetall's statement said. Deliveries will take place during 2025 and, as with the initial contract, will also include the associated HX trucks also produced by the German company.
All the details.
SKYNEX PRODUCED BY RHEINMETALL ITALIA DEPLOYED IN UKRAINE
The deployment of the Rheinmetall-built Skynex air defense system in Ukraine is raising the profile of the product and attracting new orders from around the world, Rheinmetall said earlier this year, Defense News reported . According to the CEO of Rheinmetall Italia, Ukraine had received an Italian-built Skynex battery from the company's Rheinmetall subsidiary on December 31 and it was operational.
Now Rheinmetall Italia will build other Skynex systems destined for Kiev.
THE PRODUCTION ACCELERATOR FOR THE ROMAN SITE
“And with the urgency that forced it to cut production times, the Italian company – founded as Contraves in 1952, subsequently merged with Oerlikon in 1993 and acquired by the German Rheinmetall in 1999 – strengthened its lines and supply chain of suppliers. An effort of 100 million investments to rethink and modernize the plant in 2023, to which at least another 20 will be added in 2024" reports Il Sole 24 Ore .
«We were used to processing an order in 24 months, the request was now 18, we managed to do it in 12», CEO Alessandro Ercolani commented to the cconfindustriale newspaper: «A timing that we expect to become constant, not only linked to emergency. We have invested to become flexible: demand has evolved and supply must be able to change in increasingly tighter times. The war in Ukraine that broke out in February 2022 has changed the paradigm of defense companies." The Roman plant of Rheinmetall Italia, in particular, has been invested with new production responsibilities, notes Il Sole 24 Ore, adding that " Already a world leader in the radar segment, with all the production of electronics and radio frequency technology, it has acquired the patents for the construction of the cannons that were previously produced in Switzerland, in Zurich.”
THE NUMBERS OF THE GERMAN DEFENSE GIANT
All this has also translated into numbers: the German arms and ammunition group has closed its 2023 financial statements with record profits and orders . And for 2024 Rheinmetall expects sales and profitability to increase as the war in Ukraine increases defense budgets in NATO countries. Without forgetting that Rheinmetall shares have quadrupled over the last two years, catapulting the company into the German blue-chip Dax index.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/che-cosa-produrra-rheinmetall-italia-per-lucraina/ on Wed, 03 Apr 2024 06:15:03 +0000.