With the end of the Cold War, many countries around the Baltic Sea disbanded their coastal defence squadrons and scrapped their missiles. Not so the navy of the Russian Federation, which has continuously developed the weapon systems of its Baltic Fleet. Now it looks like this resource-saving method of combating sea targets in marginal seas is experiencing a renaissance: at the beginning of October, the Estonian Defence Investment Centre announced that it had signed a contract with Proteus Advanced Systems to purchase Blue Spear sea target missiles with a range of 300 kilometres for Estonian national defence.
Good reasons - simple, practical, Baltic.
The commander of the Estonian Navy, Commodore Jüri Saska, described the purchase of the Israeli-developed weapon systems based on the Gabriel V as a significant contribution to national and collective defence in the region. Operating costs, delivery time and the involvement of Estonian national industry in the overall system were the decisive factors in the decision. In addition to its own mobility, such a missile will of course also require a corresponding fire control system and an air defence component if it is to be deployed as part of a system in an exposed position on the coastline. In addition, these systems are also to be operated on the Finnish FK fast patrol boats of the HAMINA class - an additional synergy option with the neighbour on Tallinn's opposite coast.
This makes Estonia the first country to purchase these coastal defence aircraft from Proteus, a joint venture between Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and ST Engineering Land Systems (ST) in Singapore.
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