Swiss reinforce ground-air defence with German systems

Switzerland reinforces its ground-air defence with German systems Keystone-SDA

Switzerland has purchased five IRIS-T SLM systems for ground-based air defence from Germany, the Federal Office for Defence Procurement (armasuisse) said on Monday. The purchase is worth almost CHF550 million ($690 million).

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

With these systems, “the Swiss Armed Forces is closing a key capability gap and strengthening resilience to modern threats from the air”, armasuisse said in a statementExternal link. This purchase complements the acquisition of the F-35A fighter aircraft and the American Patriot ground-air defence system.

The IRIS-T SLM system is designed to counter airborne threats at various distances and altitudes, including combat aircraft, drones and cruise missiles.

According to current plans, the first IRIS-T SLM unit will be delivered from the end of 2028. The other systems and logistics will follow between 2029 and 2031.

Translated from French by DeepL/ts

How we work 

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail]