Tunisia is looking to buy nearly 200 Javelin anti-tank missiles from the United States in a deal worth over $100 million.
The US State Department on 3 December announced that it had approved the possible Foreign Military Sale, and the Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) had accordingly notified Congress.
The Government of Tunisia has requested to buy 184 Javelin FGM-148F missiles, including 30 Javelin Lightweight Command Launch Units (LWCLU). Also included in the proposed sale are manuals, training, and support, bringing total cost to $107.7 million.
The prime contractors will be the Javelin Joint Venture between Lockheed Martin, located in Orlando, Florida, and RTX Corporation, located in Tucson, Arizona.
“The proposed sale will improve Tunisia’s long-term defence capacity to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, to meet its national defence requirements. Tunisia will have no difficulty absorbing this equipment into its armed forces,” the DSCA said.
Tunisia is not the only North African customer to be acquiring Javelins – in March, Morocco requested the sale of 612 Javelin missiles and 200 launchers for $260 million.
The Javelin was originally developed and produced for the US Army and Marine Corps by the Javelin Joint Venture – 50 000 missiles had been delivered to the US and international customers by 2021 since production began in 1994.
The Javelin is a fire-and-forget weapon with automatic infrared guidance, allowing the user to seek cover immediately after launch. Its high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead can defeat modern tanks by top-down attack, hitting them from above, where their armour is thinnest, and is also useful against fortifications in a direct attack flight.
To fire, the gunner places a cursor over the selected target. The Javelin command launch unit then sends a lock-on-before-launch signal to the missile. With its soft launch design, Javelin can be safely fired from inside buildings or bunkers. The Javelin’s time of flight is approximately 14 seconds for 2 kilometres.
The Javelin made its combat debut in Iraq in 2003 – in Afghanistan and Iraq it was used in more than 5 000 engagements – and rose to prominence in the Russo-Ukrainian War, where it has seen extensive use in destroying Russian armoured vehicles. Over a dozen European countries now use the Javelin, and global demand has been so strong that the Javelin Joint Venture is working to nearly double its production rate of 2 100 Javelins per year to 3 960 per year by 2026.
In the Middle East and North Africa, customers include Jordan, Oman, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar.
