The announcement was made on November 25 at the Air Defence Regiment in Halmstad (Lv 6), although the new systems being procured will actually be assigned directly to the manoeuvre brigade and not to the Air Defence Regiment itself.

The new order placed by the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) with Saab will see the deliver of new Fire Units and the upgrade of existing ones with the aim of ensuring that each Army Brigade, as well as the Gotland battlegroup, their own organic Medium Range Air Defence capability.

The IRIS-T missile is already in service in Sweden where it is known as the Robotsystem 98 (RBS 98). The IRIS-T SLS ground-fired variant of the missile is also already in service. It uses the BAE Systems Hägglunds BsV10 vehicle base, known in Sweden as the “Tracked Vehicle 410”.

The new order involves new Lavett 98 (Fire Unit vehicles) and upgrades to the existing ones; the supply of short range GIRAFFE 1X radars and a complete command and control solution (the Saab LSS Lv system) hosted on Platoon Leader and Company Command vehicles.

Some of the vehicles to be used will be tracked vehicles 410, others will be 4x4 SISU GTP 4×4 acquired from Finland: Sweden has in these same days signed a new joint order for 300 of these high mobility protected vehicles, including an unspecified number of units destined to the Air Defence role.

Saab is also being tasked with running a demonstration with its larger and more capable GIRAFFE AMB (Agile Multi Beam) radar, truck-mounted, which would deliver a longer range surveillance and target acquisition capability to the Brigades.

The order for the IRIS-T SLS systems is approximately SEK 2 billion (just under 200 million USD) with another 1.5 billion invested in the supporting vehicles, sensors and systems. The new systems will be assigned to Norrbotten Regiment I 19 and the Skaraborg Regiment P 4.

The Swedish “Regiments” are peacetime framework organisations which are in charge of training and raising a mechanized brigade in time of war, so the I 19, in Boden, is the core of the Norrbotten Brigade. The same is true for the P 4, core of an heavy mechanized brigade force. The new systems will equip 4 Air Defence Platoons. The acquisition is understood to involve 16 launcher vehicles and 8 GIRAFFE 1X radars.

Each launcher vehicle is armed with 4 ready-to-fire IRIS T missiles, which are IR guided like the ones used for the air to air role on GRIPEN. The IRIS-T can lock onto a target before or after being launched. This new order follows a number of other investments in the field of Air Defence, most notably the July 2025 order to Saab, also worth 1.5 billion SEK, for more RBS-70 missile systems for the SHORAD layer.

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