LONDON - Britain has awarded 153 million (US $187 million) worth of contracts to equip the Falkland Islands with a new ground-based air-defense system known as Sky Sabre, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. A clutch of deals agreed around the turn of the year but only now becoming public includes award of a contract by the British to an Israeli company to supply a key battlefield command-and-control network to defend the South Atlantic island from potential Argentinian aggression. The main contract award, which the MoD valued at 78 million (US $95 million), was signed Jan. 9 with Israels Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, to develop a battle management, command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (BMC4I) network. Missile builder MBDA and surveillance radar supplier Saab have also been awarded contracts to integrate other, already ordered, ground-based air-defense system elements into the BMC4I. Rafael, with help from UK partners Babcock, will supply its Modular, Integrated C4I Air & Missile Defense System and associated equipment in a development and manufacture phase likely to be completed around 2020. Babcock will provide a proportion of UK based activity including: synthetic based test and integration facilities, project management and hardware procurement. The percentage of UK work content on BMC4I is put at 40percent with the remainder coming from Israel. The requirement is to deliver a ground-based air defence (GBAD) capability along with an initial support solution for up to 5 years. As part of the agreement, Rafael will serve as key systems integrator, including provision of communications links and integration with existing in-service communications infrastructure.

The Israelis secured the deal on the back of delivering the best technical solution for the best value for money, said an MoD official.

Concerns have also been raised by executives here about sharing sensitive Land Ceptor missile data with the Israeli company, which is itself a significant missile developer.

Last month, the Argentine government announced the suspension of efforts to procure fighter aircraft, putting an end to rumors about talks to buy Kfirs from Israel and MiG 29s from Russia.

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Britain beefs up defenses in the Falkland Islands - DefenseNews.com