On Friday, September 5, 2025, the Swedish company Saab Defence and Security announced the signing of a contract worth approximately 550 million SEK with an undisclosed Latin American country for the delivery of a batch of Giraffe 4A medium-range multifunctional radars along with a package of related services.
Photos: Saab Defence and Security
Mobile, autonomous, fully digital Giraffe 4A radars will enhance the customer’s ground-based air surveillance capabilities and allow for software-based upgrades.
“We are proud to announce the first contract of the land-based Giraffe 4A to Latin America. This milestone marks a significant step in expanding our presence in the region with advanced medium range radar. This capability will provide our customer with state-of-the-art air surveillance capability“, says Carl-Johan Bergholm, head of Saab’s business area Surveillance.
The Giraffe 4A medium-range 3D radar stations enable airspace monitoring and air defense missions, as well as target warning and location for artillery. It is a digital, multichannel system equipped with an active electronically scanned array (AESA) antenna operating in the S-band, with transmit-receive modules based on gallium nitride (GaN) technology.
The Giraffe 4A, which can be air-transported aboard a C-130 Hercules medium transport aircraft, can be deployed by two soldiers in under 10 minutes. It is also capable of operating autonomously.
Recently, in June of this year, Sweden ordered additional radars of this type (previous contracts date back to 2020 and 2018), where they entered service under the designation PM24 as medium-range radars (medelräckviddig radar, MRR). Under another order from December 2024, they will also be delivered to units of the U.S. Air Force in Europe.
There is also a naval variant, the Sea Giraffe 4A FF (Fixed Face), ordered for Finland’s Pohjanmaa-class missile corvettes, Germany’s F123 Brandenburg-class frigates as part of their modernization, and Thailand’s Tachin-class missile frigates.
The long-range variant, the Giraffe 8A (with a range of up to 470 km), has not yet been ordered. However, the compact Giraffe 1X radars, with a range of 75 km, have been delivered to Finland, Germany, Thailand, and an undisclosed customer, and will later be delivered to the United Kingdom, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic (in the case of the latter two, as part of the mobile MSHORAD air defense system).
Release: Saab has received an order for Giraffe 4A radar systems with associated services from a country in Latin America. #radar #defence #militarytech https://t.co/7ctV1lQHRv
— Saab (@Saab) September 5, 2025