{"id":44831,"date":"2026-02-07T08:12:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T08:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/saab-is-looking-to-arm-its-gripen-fighter-jets-with-a-proven-drone-killing-rocket-after-studying-the-ukraine-war\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T08:12:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T08:12:00","slug":"saab-is-looking-to-arm-its-gripen-fighter-jets-with-a-proven-drone-killing-rocket-after-studying-the-ukraine-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/saab-is-looking-to-arm-its-gripen-fighter-jets-with-a-proven-drone-killing-rocket-after-studying-the-ukraine-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Saab is looking to arm its Gripen fighter jets with a proven drone-killing rocket after studying the Ukraine war"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69858ac2a645d1188188d14c?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Saab JAS-39C Gripen flies during an airshow.\"\/><figcaption>Saab is looking at adding the APKWS as a weapons option for the Gripen C, pictured here, and Gripen E.<\/p>\n<p>Mario Skraban\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Saab, which makes the JAS 39 Gripen, might soon add the APKWS to the fighter&#039;s weapons options.<\/li>\n<li>Company executives told Business Insider they realized they needed cheaper weapons to fight drones.<\/li>\n<li>The 70mm guided rocket system is already being used in and outside Ukraine to battle UAS.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Swedish defense prime Saab is exploring the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System as a cheaper armament option for its JAS 39 Gripen fighters, firm executives told Business Insider this week.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The APKWS is in interest because other platforms are now integrating 70mm guided rockets. So we are, of course, eyeing that capability now,&quot; Jussi Halmetoja, operations advisor for Saab&#039;s air domain, said at the Singapore Airshow.<\/p>\n<p>Halmetoja said the company was looking at ways to integrate the weapons system, which uses a guided version of the Hydra 70mm rocket, onto its older Gripen C and latest Gripen E models.<\/p>\n<p>He made the comments as he and Mikael Franz\u00ean, chief marketing officer for the Gripen program, discussed the company&#039;s observation from the Ukraine war that it needs more inexpensive weapons to counter uncrewed aerial systems.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I mean, right now we are using very expensive weapons to kill very cheap drones,&quot; Franz\u00e9n said of traditional Western air combat.<\/p>\n<p>He added that Saab is hoping to potentially equip the Gripen with systems that can fit multiple munitions onto a single hardpoint.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;If you can have four or 10 on each hardpoint, then you can kill a lot more drones,&quot; Franz\u00ean said. The APWKS is typically mounted on aircraft with multilaunch pods.<\/p>\n<p>Kyiv has signed a letter of intent with Sweden to potentially acquire up to 150 Gripen E fighters in the coming years. Ukraine&#039;s air force has yet to fly the jet, which is touted as an ideal fighter for battling Russia because it&#039;s built to operate from dispersed, rugged airfields and in the Arctic domain.<\/p>\n<p>Kyiv is now flying much of its small fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcons from such small airfields, often moving the aircraft to increase their survivability.<\/p>\n<p>But Franz\u00e9n and Halmetoja said the Gripen can turn around much faster from dispersed airfields and be ready for a new mission within 10 minutes of landing.<\/p>\n<p>Sweden, South Africa, Brazil, Thailand, Czechia, and Hungary are among the countries that fly the Gripen.<\/p>\n<p>The APWKS, meanwhile, is already being deployed across various systems in Ukraine. <\/p>\n<p>For example, the VAMPIRE counter-UAS systems feature a four-barrel launcher for the guided Hydra rockets that can be mounted on a pickup truck.<\/p>\n<p>The cost of using one APKWS round is estimated at $20,000 to $35,000, compared to weapons more typically associated with modern fighters, such as the AIM-9 Sidewinder, which costs roughly $450,000, and the AIM-120 AMRAAM, which costs roughly $1 million.<\/p>\n<p>Concerns about missile costs against cheaper drones have risen steadily since the war began, and as Russia has continuously grown its loitering munitions mass manufacturing.<\/p>\n<p>Outside Ukraine, the US military has also been using the APWKS to recently fight drone attacks in the Middle East. The weapons system, loaded on American F-16s and F-15s, was responsible for roughly 40% of the drone kills scored by US forces against Houthi drones during last year&#039;s Operation Rough Rider.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saab is looking at adding the APKWS as a weapons option for the Gripen C, pictured here, and Gripen E. Mario Skraban\/Getty Images Saab, which makes the JAS 39 Gripen, might soon add the APKWS to the fighter&#039;s weapons options. Company executives told Business Insider they realized they needed cheaper weapons to fight drones. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-44831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}