France orders camouflage nets from Saab

The DGA ordered 3,000 multispectral camouflage nets from Saab Barracuda on 21 January. (DGA)

The Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA), France’s defence procurement agency, announced on its website on 27 February that it had ordered 3,000 multispectral camouflage nets from Saab Barracuda on 21 January under its Filet écran radar-IR (Fenrir) procurement programme.

Under the EUR30 million (USD32.4 million) contract, the French Army and Air and Space Force will receive multispectral camouflage nets between 2024 and 2026, which the DGA expects to “significantly improve” the ability to conceal division, brigade, combined joint force, and vehicle command posts, masking their visible, infrared, and radar signatures so they blend more easily into the environment. They will be provided for four different environments: northern Europe, southern Europe, desert, and snow.

The camouflage nets were developed over two years by Saab and the Section Technique de l’Armée de Terre (STAT), the French Army’s Technical Section, to meet French forces’ requirements.

Saab has subcontracted the French small- and medium-sized enterprise Solarmtex in Vierzon to manufacture and assemble the camouflage nets in a new factory.