In the heart of the Allier, the Safran branch manufactures high -tech equipment to equip combat aircraft.
In Montluçon, in the heart of France – the French defense industry has historically developed far from the enemy borders – the phones remain at the entrance, and the workshops evoke a pharmaceutical laboratory more than the noise of boots.
Safran’s defense branch, better known for its engines that equip Airbus and Boeing bestsellers, does not make large spectacular weapons, but high-tech accessories that make them intelligent.
Like the AASM, high-precision modular air-ground armament, made up of a guide kit and another propulsion, installed respectively at the front and back of a 250 to 1,000 kg bomb which has not changed much since the Second World War.
Production multiplied by four
This reference armament of the French Rafale entered service in 2008 and nicknamed “Wonder Weapon” by the Americans, is used by the Ukrainian army, to which France provided several hundred of these systems.
Embeddable on the MIG-29, SU-25 and UKrainian hunters, the bombs equipped with the AASM will be delivered to the rate of fifty per month, promised at the beginning of the year the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu.
Precision manufacturing
Eyes alone in the open, a technician adjusts the mirrors of the future Safran gyroscope, a concentrate of technology of a few grams intended to guide bombs, armored vehicles, planes and submarines without ever fear of the scrambling.
The manufacture of gyrolasers extends over 6,000 m2 of “white rooms”, where the employees, fully covered and masked, are only visible through windows and a grid.
“Skin particles are the main enemy” for the precision of this equipment, explains Michel Augot, site manager, during a rare press visit.
The gyroscopes ensuring the inertial navigation of the AASMs make them infallible in the face of the jamming. The inertial power station uses the physical properties found in the Foucault pendulum or the top: by cross-checking the measures of angles and accelerations, it restores the position and speed of armaments systems and guides them in space, explains Jean-Noël Mahieu, director of operations at Safran Electronics and Defense.
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“This function is absolutely critical in Ukraine where you cannot count on the GPS signal because there are Russian jammers” which prevent its good reception, explains Franck Saudo, president of Safran Electronics and Defense.
The French government has asked Safran to integrate AASM into Ukrainian hunters after the JMD American ammunition at GPS guidance missed their targets. What was done “in less than four months in the fall of 2023”, making it possible to “treat targets with excellent precision”.
Since the invasion of Ukraine, the production of AASM has been multiplied by four, with 830 copies manufactured in 2024 and 1,200 planned this year.
Agility and speed
For Franck Saudo, Safran’s ability, as a team, to quickly adapt to the requirements of current conflicts constitutes an example of “the war economy before time”.
Such profiles are sought by the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) to counterbalance the heaviness and long cycles of the classic military industry.
Safran’s feat in the fight anti-Red Sea was cited this week among the successes of the year 2024 in the balance sheet of the DGA.
When, at the end of 2023, the French frigates were attacked by low -cost Houthi drones, ASTER sophisticated missiles, at the very high price, which are drawn to destroy them. A long -term unbearable defense.
“In four weeks”, Safran equipped the frigates of Pasteo XLR, an optronic system which allows “to see the drone 40 km and to identify it”.
“If it is a small drone, we let him move forward at 10 km and we shoot it with a 76 mm cannon rather than an ASTER, which radically reduces the cost of the operation,” explains Franck Saudo.
The defense activities of the equipment supplier will be presented at the Bourget International Fair, which will be held in Seine-Saint-Denis from June 16 to 22.
After a leap of 46% in two years of its annual turnover, at 3 billion euros, Safran Electronics and Defense intends to continue this increase, by capitalizing on the awareness of threats in Europe and the increase in military budgets.
