🇩🇪🇿🇦 German defence giant plans South African production line for drone bomb with 15 km range

Rheinmetall Denel Munition (RDM) CEO Maximilian Froch has said the production line for the locally developed LongClaw glide bomb will start up in the second half of next year.

Development of the LongClaw began early last year, and a mock-up was shown on the RDM stand at the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) 2026 exhibition at Air Force Base Waterkloof last month. Froch told DefenceWeb at the show that while the production line will only start up in the second half of next year, small quantities of the LongClaw are already being assembled manually. Over the past few months, the weapon has undergone evaluation on a number of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms.

While the LongClaw can be launched from manned aircraft, the target market for the bomb is the UAV market. One of the reasons for targeting the UAV market is that the qualification process for such munitions on these platforms is usually far faster than that for a manned aircraft. RDM stresses that mounting and integration of the weapon on UAVs is designed to be straightforward.

https://defenceweb.co.za/industry/industry-industry/rdm-to-start-longclaw-glide-bomb-production-line-in-second-half-of-2027/