Reuters has published this information on the basis of a document of the German defence ministry dated January 25.
A German Federal Ministry of Defence spokesperson said the ministry intends to submit the deal on the procurement of IRIS-T SLM for Bundeswehr “this year”.
IRIS-T SLM is the state-of-the-art air defence system developed by the German defence industry company Diehl Defence.
According to Diehl Defence, each IRIS-T SLM systems consist of three launchers of surface-to-air missiles (eight missiles per launcher), a containerized Tactical Operation Centre (TOC) and one radar.
The primary radar of IRIS-T SLM systems is Hensoldt TRML-4D. Moreover, in 2022 Diehl Defence revealed that it has begun the integration of IRIS-T-SLM air defence systems with passive radar Hensoldt Twinvis to be used as secondary radar.
IRIS-T SLM is currently operated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine to defend the Ukrainian airspace against various threats. According to reports of the Ukrainian military, the IRIS-T SLM features extremely high effectiveness.
Germany will deliver to Ukraine a total of four IRIS-T air defence systems. The first of them was handed over to Ukraine in October 2022.
The IRIS-T SLM will be one of the components of the future European multi-layered air defence system which will be developed under the European Sky Shield Initiative.
