NOTE:
Thank You!
An aggressive marketing campaign from Swedish defence firm Saab is extolling the virtues of weapons that help users to ”see first – kill first” and can be adjusted to focus specifically on ”soft targets”.Just plain wow.
At a weapons fair in Qatar in late March, the company informed potential buyers that its Gripen fighter planes guaranteed a high ”death ratio”, newspaper Expressen reports.
In its marketing materials, the firm also boasts that its Bill 2 anti-tank guided weapon contains a ”soft target mode” that can be used to hone in on civilian houses, cars, and groups of people.
Asked about the JAS 39 Gripen's ”See first – Kill first” slogan, Saab spokeswoman Marie Karlsson told Expressen:
”I actually don’t know what we were thinking when we used those words. I wasn’t involved in making that judgment or taking that decision,” she said.
Pressed further, she declined to criticize the company’s choice of wording.
”We are after all a defence and security company working with defence-related products. Like any other company, we make use of marketing messages.”
But Henrik Westander at PR agency Westander Publicitet & PĂ„verkan lamented the fact that very little appeared to have changed in the defence industry in marketing terms over the last three decades.
”I remember how [Swedish defence firm] Bofors marketed an anti-aircraft gun in the United States in the 1980s using an image of a sharp-shooting cowboy drawing both his pistols at the same time.
"They wanted to give the impression that it was all a game, and it’s still like that now,” he told Expresssen.
General characteristics | |
---|---|
Type: | coastal corvette |
Displacement: | 274 tonnes full load |
Length: | 155.83 ft (47.50 m) 46.8 ft (14.3 m) (Length on cushion) |
Beam: | 44.29 ft (13.50 m) |
Draught: | 3.3 ft (1.0 m) |
Propulsion: | 2 × Twin gas turbines →12,170 kilowatts Twin diesel engines →1,490 kilowatts |
Speed: | In rough sea: 45 knots In calm sea: 60 knots |
Range: | 800 nmi at 40 knots (74 km/h) |
Complement: | 15-16 |
Sensors and processing systems: | Thales MRR-3D-NG air/surface radar Ceros 200 FC CS-3701 electronic warfare suite Sagem Vigy 20 Electro-optical sensor |
Armament: | 8 Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile SSMs (when available) kept in an internal weapons bay 76mm Otobreda Super Rapid multi-role cannon Mistral Surface to air missile 12.7mm gun |
Notes: | Soft kill: TKWA/MASS (Multi Ammunition Softkill System) Other: Link 11 and Link 16 |