,
12 tweets,
5 min read
Read on Twitter
Ivor Ichikowitz of South African weapons manufacturer Paramount Group points out that Africa is getting more stable and so he sells not just weapons but factories to make weapons to regions that are being destabilized. And credits Nelson Mandela for this. wearefinn.com/topics/posts/f…
Paramount specializes in cheaper, lighter, faster weapons that are built in local factories. Not surprisingly they are far ahead of U.S. attempts to develop and deploy cheaper weapon platforms. One third of the weapons market is in the Middle East.
they have reinvented the North American Rockwell OV-10B "Bronco" as the high tech MWARI "SMART" for close air support from rough fields and forward base ISR collection. MWARI "SMART". Also available in UAV version.
They have also focused on revamping old airframes like refurbing Mirage F1s, Mi-24s and other platforms. Paramount bought the entire South African F1 fleet. Third world fleets can compete with first world at bargain prices. combataircraft.keypublishing.com/2018/04/12/dra…
They also revamp fixed wings, Gazelles and other older helos like Eurocopters. The FLASH kit allows helmet-mounted display, electro-optical turret, mission display, 12.7 mm gun pods and 70 mm unguided rockets. Now 27 nations can weaponize old airframes. defenceweb.co.za/aerospace/aero…
Some of these ideas come from bush wars where existing or low cost civilian platforms are quickly modified to kill insurgents. These are Gazelles used against Boko Haram by mercenaries in 2015 hired by the Nigerian government. theguardian.com/world/2015/apr… 
The only real American attempt to create low cost weapons has been the IOMAX which uses Roketsan (Turkish) and non US weapons. The US played games to prevent the IOMAX from competing for the light attack contract.
Magically a new bigger vendor with no experience L3 inked deals to sell cheap armed Air Tractors to Kenya. After an investigation it was determined that this was business as usual. jqpublicblog.com/418m-kenyan-ar…
America fumbles with trying to arm developing nations we maintain massive arms proliferation policy to Arab dictatorships who "gift" weapons for dirty wars in Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Libya and appear to be unable to use high tech U.S. weapons, intel and armament to gain. advantage.
Turkey and China are rapidly developing state backed companies to fill this demand by developing countries for cheap weaponry used in dirty wars. But Europe and Russia will catch up. And don't forget there is plenty of used inventory from ex Soviet states. weforum.org/agenda/2018/03…
The anomaly is that first world weapons are rarely used in combat by customers and are politically sensitive. Low cost weapons, donated or made in the host country are more likely to be used in conflicts and are harder to control their proliferation armscontrol.org/factsheets/uni…
The lesson? Watch for new modifications of older cheap weapon platforms by players like Paramount, UAE, Turkey, China etc sold to dictatorships then "gifted" for use in dirty wars that we can't control. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews…
