HERSTAL, Belgium — Thales Belgium has “more than doubled” its guided rocket production capacity in response to increased demand after the conflict in the Middle East, and company officials expect to produce annually 20K by 2028, a rough average of 100 guided rockets per day.
“We are accelerating and changing the numbers. If we were talking together a few months back, before what’s happening in the Middle East, in fact, the numbers were not in the same. We more than doubled the number, considering the situation at the moment in the Middle East,” Thomas Colinet Managing Director at Thales Belgium told Breaking Defense in an interview last week.
He added that Thales is getting prepared “to support the Middle East in quantities, in mass production with cost-effective solution, that’s key for us to be really in a structure of make to stock,” he said pointing that now Thales Belgium is “in a process of making to stock to be ready when all the requests will come.”
During a media tour to Thales Belgium’s facilities in Herstal and Fort d’Evegnée where the company produces its 70 mm guided and unguided rockets, journalists saw the production lines that build the system, from chips and fuses to rocket head, eye and motor. A firing test of the guided rocket also took place during the tour. (Like other media outlets, Breaking Defense accepted travel and accommodation from the Thales for the trip.)
