New Capabilities of David's Sling. Will it Support Polish Patriot Systems? [INTERVIEW]

Jędrzej Graf: We are speaking on the Paris Air Show. Rafael was planning to present many of the products, including the Air and Missile Defence systems. French authorities decided to block Rafael exhibition. How do you comment on that?

Shlomo Toaff, Rafael, Executive Vice President, Head of the Air Defence Division: Regarding Paris, we rented this space over a year ago. Legally, it is ours. We didn’t get any official report telling us „do not come”. We actually gave them a blueprint of our booth months ago. They did have a list of our equipment over a month ago from their customs. Why did not tell us beforehand. Why do it in the dark of the night, like a thief?

Today we see conflicts from Ukraine to Israel. What are key threat developments, regarding air defence, and how is Rafael responding?

So I’ll say this. When you look at the air defense, it’s being stretched up and down. What do I mean by that? On the one hand, you see the UAVs as an emerging threat, an emerging possibility basically everywhere. And you see the transition from normal fighter aircraft to ballistic missiles and rockets as a trend. The other trend that you see is masses. Everybody is using large masses. It’s not just the single shot and the war is over.

Wars are becoming longer, masses of weapons are being used. For some reason, the Western world has found itself unprepared, I would say, the emerging threat. The third issue that I would mention is what George W Bush called the axis of evil: now it is North Korea, China, Russia, this is the modern edition. The fact that you find North Korean soldiers in Ukraine and Iranian Shaheds tells you the story. The fact that you have Chinese airplane landing in Iran means one front against the others I would I would like to say that we are the free world French don’t let us be free, as you can see.

And what are the developments from technical point of view?

We have inserted a lot of new capabilities into our systems in order to deal with UAVs, but also other emerging threats effectively. Recently it was published that David’s Sling shot down a ballistic missile, so we are also taking care of that threat. In this show we were going the laser systems we have for the first time.

Iron Beam, which is complementary to the Iron Dome, with the philosophy that the combination of kinetic and directed energy weapons gives a very good, robust and cost effective solution. Each one of them is very good, but together it gives a whole new dimension to defence.

And of course I would say that in the anti-UAV world, there are many developments and many new systems that we are putting across that I would say have to be in the price range of the threat and have to be capable to deal with these threats which have their own unique characteristic. Such as speed of flight, altitude of flight, size etc.

You spoke about the counter-UAV system. What is the newest system that you developed?

I would say maybe the newest I should say is the laser which has already proven itself during the war. We have an array of lasers depending on power from 10 kilowatt class, 30-50 kilowatt up to 100 kilowatt class, depending on the threat. And like I said, the introduction of laser and integration with the kinetic system is something very interesting.

We have heard about tremendous Iranian attack on Haifa city. We know that there is a key infrastructure of Rafael around the city, have you heard of any losses, is there any damage?

Frankly, I have not been home since the end of the May. I can tell you though that everything is working and running, the production is ongoing, development is ongoing. We are working and nobody will stop us.

We are learning lessons from the current war. One of the very interesting things that is happening here is that we study all the time what is happening. Because the enemy is introducing new threats, the enemy is studying us and we are doing our best.

Do we see hypersonic missiles?

I would say we are seeing very fast missiles. The Iranians have just declared that they have hypersonic missiles, but I am sure we will be prepared for everything.

I would like to ask a question regarding David’s Sling. How is the system developed, is there any new version?

Today David’s Sling is operational, but we are constantly developing. To give you an example: you know Iron Dome, Iron Dome is certainly operational air defence system in the world. Not only against rockets, but against drones and other threats, against nearly everything, of course in the short range space, because that is the place where the system is. And Iron Dome is being constantly developed, we have hundreds of engineers working at its development at any given moment, to keep it up to speed and up to threat, to make sure it is the most effective system we have in the world.

And the same goes for David’s Sling. We are constantly developing and updating. And when you get a system from Israel, you get a benefit of having the most technologically advanced system that is battle-proven. It is a slogan you often see entering this hall, but we do our learning during the war. We are constantly learning the threats, we are constantly learning what the enemy is going to adapt to our capabilities, and taking care of that.

So our systems have high reliability and very high success rate in the battlefield. I can tell you that two days ago, I was called by the chief Israeli air defense. And I just two days ago I was called by the chief Israeli air defense. I was given complement for the performance of the systems I provided him with.

And we know that, as you know, Poland is facing also, you know, a Russian aggression, similar to one Ukraine is now fighting against. Poland is using Spike missile, there were also some discussions with Rafael on the air defence. I would like to ask whether from your perspective is the Russian threat different or similar to that from Iran?

I would say that the minute you see proliferation of weapons from Iran to Russia, you have to assume that there is a proliferation from Russia to Iran too. I would say that the Ukraine-Russian war, the Israeli Iran war, are parts of the same front, different participants, but the same front against the same axis.

In Polish context, Poland already bought the Patriot systems, Poland is developing Narew system using CAMM missile, but there is a challenge regarding an interceptor for Patriot which would be less expensive than PAC-3 MSE for the Wisla program. Do you think a Rafael solution could be fit for that project?

Certainly, I would say David’s Sling is a very good interceptor system, and the most cost effective solution available right now. And David’s Sling is combat proven, even against ballistic missiles, it is doing a great job. So certainly it could be used to support the Polish Patriot systems that Poland already bought.

Thank you for the conversation.