Last week, The Budget Committee of the Bundestag, the German federal parliament, approved several spending programs for the Bundeswehr.
Among these programs, the one involving the Luftwaffe’s purchase of Litening 5 target illuminator pods for Eurofighter strike fighters is worth a deeper look.
The program has financial coverage of approximately 358 million euros which will come from Bundeswehr’s Special Fund and the regular Defence budget.
The new Litening 5 pods will represent a significant improvement over those currently in use, Litening 3, because they will also illuminate moving targets.
A further improvement brought by the new pods being acquired relates to the reconnaissance capabilities of the Eurofighter strike fighters.
The Litening 5 is produced by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Systems Ltd. and is characterised by the presence of a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) that gives it all-weather capabilities in any weather conditions.
In addition to the SAR radar, there are IR and SWIR or Short-Wavelength Infrared sensors that allow the Litening 5 to achieve exceptional performance, enhanced by the daytime HD camera.
The program includes the purchase of just under a hundred Litening 5 pods that will give the Eurofighter strike fighters new and important attack capabilities, taking the place of the Panavia Tornado IDS, which are being phased out, having reached the end of their over forty-year operational life.
Source German Ministry of Defense
Photo credit @Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.
