Call to arms
Quevrin said Thales Belgium is seeing “unbelievable” demand for its rockets as NATO scrambles to secure its skies. A majority of its current production is going to Ukraine.
The rockets made in its Herstal site and Évegnée Fort factory can be used against drones, with the laser-guided version targeting larger, high-altitude UAVs like Iranian-designed Shaheds, while their unguided siblings instead release thousands of steel balls upon detonation to take out swarms of smaller, low-altitude drones.
In recent weeks, the military alliance has drawn sharp criticism for its response to recent airspace incursions, after NATO warplanes used multimillion-dollar missiles to shoot down Russian drones made of wood and foam each costing about $10,000.
Thales has received dozens of requests for its rockets since the incursion into Poland, Quevrin said, given their 8-kilometer-range rockets use NATO-wide standards that can fit into existing weapons systems.
“It’s a plug-and-play solution just to address more and more types of targets,” he said. Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland are among the company’s top NATO clients, and the firm says its rockets are four times cheaper than alternatives on the market.
Still, to meet that demand, Quevrin said, the EU needs to help the industry overcome another hurdle: setting up a body to organize cross-border projects and procurement for both companies and governments.
The EU is legally forbidden from directly funding weapons and military equipment, but has rolled out several initiatives aiming to facilitate joint arms procurement by member countries, including through its €150 billion SAFE loans-for-weapons program.