IHS Jane’s 360:
Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson confirmed on 15 March that the company was in discussions with the Polish and Turkish governments on the Medium Extended Air Defence System (MEADS).
The Polish government had reportedly restarted discussions with Lockheed in February, following the decision by the recently elected Law and Justice Party government to revisit the selection of the Raytheon Patriot for the country’s Wisla air defence programme by the former Civic Platform government.
The MEADS consortium had previously proposed an extensive offset package to Poland as part of its bid for the programme. This included producing at least 40% of the system in Poland through a co-production agreement and a 33% stake in the consortium (taken equally from stakes owned by Lockheed Martin, MBDA Italia, and MBDA Deutschland). Other proposed workshare packages included the domestic manufacture of sub-components, such as the missile’s seeker system, and the use of a Polish prime mover for the system.
However, the MEADS system was later rejected, before a run-off between Raytheon’s Patriot and the Eurosam SAMP/T system. Talks are understood to be currently underway with both Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
The confirmation of discussions with Turkey comes as the country cancelled its planned procurement of the China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp (CPMIEC) HQ-9, which was down-selected in 2013 for the T-Loramids air defence programme. Following the cancellation of the procurement, Turkey announced that it would be looking to create a locally developed solution and procure an off-the-shelf solution as an urgent operational requirement…
