Romania eyes Polish UAVs and loitering munitions

WB Group has announced the signing of an agreement with ROMAERO, Romania’s aerospace and defence industry company. The cooperation is to focus on the production of unmanned aerial systems for the Romanian Ministry of Defence.  The agreement was concluded during the BSDA defence exhibition — Black Sea Defence and Aerospace — currently taking place in Bucharest.

According to the company’s statement, cooperation between WB and ROMAERO will specifically concern the GLADIUS reconnaissance-strike system. „Under the agreement, WB Group and ROMAERO will cooperate on the assembly and production of WARMATE loitering munition systems in Romania. The partnership provides for adapting ROMAERO’s facilities for large-scale production for the needs of the Romanian Armed Forces, as well as creating additional production capacity for European markets,” the statement reads.

The agreement between the two companies is intended to form part of the SAFE programme. „This cooperation places Romanian industrial and engineering competencies at the centre of the solutions we intend to deliver, while ensuring that the value generated by programmes financed through SAFE remains within Romania’s industrial ecosystem. The signing of the agreement during BSDA, shortly after the establishment of WB ROMANIA, marks another stage in the long-term development of our presence in this country,” said Piotr Wojciechowski, President of WB Group.

What the GLADIUS system is?

GLADIUS combines WARMATE-family loitering munitions — providing strike capabilities at ranges exceeding 100 kilometres — with WB Group’s unmanned reconnaissance platforms, operating on the basis of the TOPAZ battle management system.

The Gladius system enables soldiers to carry out patrol and reconnaissance missions using the FT‑5 Łoś unmanned aerial vehicle, and, upon detecting a target, to eliminate it with the BSP‑U strike drone. By fitting the FT‑5 airframe with appropriate payloads, it can also be adapted for SAR (Search and Rescue) and ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) roles. These variants differ not only in mission profile but also in propulsion, hybrid for SAR and electric for ELINT correspondingly.  These versions also differ in propulsion: hybrid and electric, respectively.