The Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency (FMA) who is responsible for procurements on the part of the Ministry of Defense has revealed the first demonstration of its new short-range air defense system that took place in late May 2023. The missile system was presented by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace to Norwegian military and government officials.
According to the official statement by FMA, the new SHORAD is comprised of some elements of the NASAMS surface-to-air system, has a radar from Danish Weibel Scientific and is adapted for firing IRIS-T missiles. The chassis is the ACSV G5 made by German FFG.
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The performance characteristics were not specified by FMA, only in general words mentioned that during the presentation, the officials were "demonstrated how the system is capable of detecting drones, helicopters and aircraft."
Though what's more interesting in our case is that the very same air defense system is in sight of the Netherlands who wants to procure them with deliveries scheduled for 2026-2028. In the Dutch documents, this system goes by the name ACSV G5, and some data suggest that it will be capable of using AIM-9X air-to-air missiles for engaging the air target from the ground.
There is no information as to how many ACSV G5s the Netherlands was planning to buy, there is only the fact these systems will replace 18 old Stinger systems on Fennek chassis.
However, the most important detail here is that the German FFG positions its ACSV G5 as an armored multi-purpose combat support vehicle, the armament of which can be altered by the modular principle. The vehicle's combat weight is 29 tons, payload capacity 9 tons, crew 2 personnel and up to 12 soldiers in the landing team compartment, road speed 74 km/h (46 mph).
That said, we have three countries – Germany (chassis and missile), Denmark (radar) and Norway (launchers and industrial capacities) – cooperating to create a short-range air defense system intended to replace the older systems in the same category in the European armies. And even though this project already employs ready modular solutions to turn them into an air defense system, it still is expected to bring first fruit no sooner than after several years of development.
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