Weaponry for Africa and some chinks in the armour

THE strange thing about defence shows such as Africa Aerospace & Defence that concluded at the weekend at the Waterkloof Air Force base south of Pretoria, is that they reveal the chinks in the armour of defence industry hubris about its products.

Underscoring this was a deafening live-fire demonstration, including South Africa’s Rooikat 6x6 armoured fighting vehicles and two Rooivalk attack helicopters, one still in its white UN paint after seeing combat against M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

While the Rooikat is the only African-made armoured fighting vehicle and the Rooivalk the only African-made attack helicopter, the sole client for Denel’s chopper since it first flew in 1985 has been SA’s 16 Squadron. However, this has not stopped the company from considering a new export version.

Show organisers predicted that when the dust of the rotorwash and afterburners settled, 446 exhibitors from 34 countries would have drawn 30,000 trade visitors from 91 countries. But regular trade visitors say the show seemed quieter than previous years, despite the huge range of offerings; one expert put this down to the show’s shift away from civil aviation.

Certainly, many things have changed. At Africa Aerospace & Defence 2006, the sole Africa Aerospace & Defence unmanned aircraft on display was Denel’s Seeker 1 surveillance drone.

At the 2016 show, drones were ubiquitous, with Denel showing off its Seeker 400, Africa’s only hunter-killer drone; the US Air Force its deadly General Atomics Reaper hunter-killer; Ultimate Unmanned of Midrand its light aircraft-sized Viper 1000C surveillance-for-hire drone; Anglo-Italian AgustaWestland its Solo optionally piloted or unmanned helicopter; and Nigeria its Proforce Remoeye 006 surveillance drone.

There was a large Chinese suite of civilian and military unmanned aerial vehicles, and drones have taken to the water too, with SA’s Paramount Naval Systems showcasing a concept for an unmanned mini surveillance gunboat.

The largest systems on display included a Chinese aircraft carrier — definitely not on the horizon for the medium-weight South African Navy — the Indian Scorpene submarine, Europe’s MBDA missile systems and the new Russian main battle tank, UralVagonZavod’s T-90MS, the scion of Soviet-era tanks, the hulls of which still litter the landscape in countries such as Angola.

HOWEVER, arms sales are often not about macro systems, but rather innovations at subsystem and individual operator levels, being the real game-changers on the tech-heavy, personnel-light future battlefield. China’s Power-Time tactical headset that sends and receives communications via vibrations in the soldier’s cheekbones, leaving their ears free for situational awareness; or Cape Town’s Rhino Plastics shrink-wrapping of engines and entire jet aircraft for shipping or storage (the copper-plastic composite wrap absorbs corrosives in the contained air, preserving delicate electronics).

Transnational collaboration on uniting subsystems with main platforms is very much the current defence industry trend, away from the old single-country-total-systems approach. For example, Denel produces the composite wing mount and vertical tail for the Airbus A400M heavy transport plane.

It’s here that the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and SA) bloc of nations appears to have underdelivered on its promise. When Brics precursor, the India-Brazil-SA partnership, was sealed in 2003, defence contractors were among the first to jump at the chance of cross-country collaborations. But where these have occurred, they appear to have done so as a result of direct company-to-company relations, with formal Brics structures playing almost no role.

An example is SA’s requirement for a long-endurance airborne early-warning and control-system (AWACS) aircraft for maritime surveillance and search-and-rescue, and for inland intelligence-gathering in support of peacekeeping missions.

A decade ago, Brazil was touting to us its Embraer 145RS, essentially an executive jet converted into a "poor man’s AWACS", with its radar able to penetrate dense jungle canopy, the sweetener being that SA could install its own avionics. Now, India’s state DRDO firm touted its AWACS at Africa Aerospace & Defence 2016 — piggybacked off an Embraer jet. DRDO representatives say the collaboration had zero to do with Brics.

Weirdly, despite fusions as in missile technology between SA and Brazil, there was no Brazilian stand. More worrying was the chagrined word from India’s two state shipyards on show, Garden Reach and Mazagon Dock, that although both build offshore patrol vessels, in service with the Indian Navy, neither was even made aware through Brics structures of the SA Navy’s Project Biro requirement for three offshore patrol vessels — and now it’s too late to bid.

Brazil may have been absent, but Turkey turned out in force, with its pavilion dominated by Roketsan’s cruise-missile-sized air-to-surface missile and Anadolu Shipyard’s offerings, dwarfing even that of Russia, China and the US.

The US had stands promoting the defence sector in states such as Maryland, but Boeing was strangely not in the house to stand up to European rival Airbus.

Rather than Brics, defence collaborations at the show were being most visibly driven by the British through UK Trade & Investment’s Defence & Security Organisation, with spokesman Adam Thomas advocating strongly that Britain is in Africa for the long haul, and to build egalitarian two-way partnerships, and so took an unhurried approach to procurement.

AN INTRIGUING example is the work of the UK’s Inmarsat, which, now driven by its Cape Town designers, produces a slick system to integrate and extend the range of defence, police and emergency services communications — regardless of whether they are analogue or digital, on UHF or VHF channels — seamlessly shifting the transmissions at lowest cost from radio to cell networks to satellite.

SA’s leading edge was demonstrated by Vliegmasjien’s novel amphibious light aircraft, and by Aerosud’s AHRLAC patrol light aircraft (using surveillance optics such as the Airbus Argos II on the Rooivalk chopper and the Seeker 400 drone), which in its Paramount Mwari light ground-attack version is the first military aircraft designed and built in Africa since the Rooivalk.

Aerosud’s Leon Potgieter says its new plant at Wonderboom Airport is expected roll up to four of these craft a month off its production line by 2018 or 2019. With countering terrorism, piracy and poaching high on the mission profiles of many African countries, it is likely they will sell better than the Rooivalk.