Signing today in Israel for the "Achilles Shield"

The contracts will be signed by the General Directorate of Defense Armaments and Investments of the Ministry of National Defense and SIBAT, the Directorate of International Defense Cooperation of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, with the participation of Israeli entities and companies involved in the program.

It will be delivered to the Greek Armed Forces gradually, is expected to be fully operational in 35 months and the Greek participation in the production and installation process will correspond to 25% of the project.

Greek participation

As reported by sources at the Ministry of National Defense, in the previous days some details that had remained to be clarified were settled and concerned the securing of a 25% Greek participation in the project and the assignment of the source code, so that the Greek Armed Forces have control of the software that "runs" the electronic subsystems of the anti-aircraft dome.

The cost of the "Achilles Shield" will reach 3.1 billion euros. The Greek companies that will participate - a total of twelve (Metlen, Scytalys, EAS, PPC, EAB, Prisma, Eyeonix, UniSystems, Sthenos, etc.) - will undertake a project that exceeds 700 million euros.

The structure of the “Achilles Shield” concerns the combined operation of existing systems, such as the Patriot anti-aircraft and drones already installed in military infrastructures on islands and on the mainland, and Israeli-made anti-aircraft systems. These are the self-propelled short-range anti-aircraft Spyder from Rafael, the Barak MX from IAI for shooting down medium-range threats and the David’s Sling (IAI) for intercepting ballistic and other long-range missiles.

Artificial Intelligence

The “Achilles Shield” will operate with software based on artificial intelligence and through this, potential threats will be identified, categorized and the optimal way and means of shooting them down will be selected. The software will be interconnected with the subsystems of the anti-aircraft shield, which, as the case may be, concern anti-ballistic protection, countering drones and anti-aircraft armor.

It will evaluate the data for each potential threat without human intervention and will indicate the best way to deal with it.

This is a particularly important parameter, according to the Ministry of Defense, as it is estimated that it will contribute – among other things – to saving resources, by choosing a response appropriate to the threat.

The Israeli-made systems that are integrated into it have already been integrated into the Israeli Iron Dome against a series of attacks, so their deterrence ability against aerial threats has been tested in practice.

Sources at the Ministry of National Defense emphasize that the modern threat environment has shown how necessary the existence and operation of effective anti-aircraft defense are, especially given the geopolitical upheavals and the threats emerging in the wider region.