Israel Military Industry (IMI) is transforming from a government-managed
entity into a privatized commercial operation. President and CEO
Arieh Mizrachi is confident that the current restructuring will
result in a successful and growing company.
"This year IMI will reach an annual sales volume of $440
million," he told Show News. "We are planning to sell
some activities, and focus in four core activities."
This concept is aligned with IMI's mission statement-to provide
firepower, mobility and protection to the warfighter. The four
core activities include: the production and modernization of armored
fighting vehicles, which also focus on development of future manned
and unmanned armored vehicles; development and production of ammunition
for aircraft, rockets, tanks, artillery and small arms, including
aerial weapons (penetration and cluster bombs and submunitions);
and autonomous weapons and rockets.
"Drawing lessons from recent conflicts and global trends,
IMI is demonstrating several new initiatives that optimize the
effect of aerial weapons, while reducing collateral damage,"
said Mizrachi.
IMI is providing the warheads for many precision-guided weapons
and cooperates with other industries on development. The I-800
penetration warhead is a standard on the Popeye and Have-Lite
standoff missiles. The M-200 bomb and PB-500 penetration warheads
are on display at Paris with guidance systems developed by IAI,
Elbit and Rafael.
"We also introduce advanced and autonomous standoff weapons
such as Delilah, and MSOV," Mizrachi noted. Delilah enables
helicopters and fighter aircraft to launch precision attacks with
loitering capability, from ranges beyond 250 km, while MSOV carries
an impressive payload over 100km to hit targets with high precision.
IMI also offers improvement programs for cluster munitions, based
on its M-85/87 bomblets.
"The recent conflict in Iraq proved that cluster bombs provide
a devastating effect on the target, but also cause much collateral
damage, by hazardous duds," said Mizrachi. "It was demonstrated
that the number of duds generated by cluster munitions deployed
by the British forces was dramatically lower than those of U.S.
weapons, due to the use of self-destruct fusing."
IMI has developed a self-destruct fuse (SDF) that is considered
to be the most reliable and is the only type complying with international
treaties limiting the distribution of cluster munitions and mines.
SDF reduces the number of hazardous duds to less than 0.2%. IMI's
bomblets and SFD were supplied in large quantities to several
NATO countries. It recently signed a cooperation agreement with
ATK to produce and market its self-destruct fuse mechanisms in
the USA. The IMI bomblets and fuses are currently offered for
upgrading of cluster munitions of all types, including bombs,
missiles, rockets, artillery cargo ammunition and mortar bombs.
