Saab unveils Bolide 2 missile for RBS 70
The Bolide 2 SHORAD missile, unveiled by Saab in May 2026. (Janes/Tom Barton)
Saab has revealed its new Bolide 2 missile for the RBS 70 short range air defence (SHORAD) system.
The original Bolide missile, unveiled in 2003, has the same 9 km range and 5 km altitude coverage as Bolide 2. The main improvement is in the warhead and other components, Mats-Olof Rydberg, head of product unit GBAD (ground-based air defence) told Janes during a media briefing on 5 May 2026.
“We are moving to spiral development, meaning faster turnaround times for improvements to the platform,” Rydberg said. “But to do that we wanted a properly modular architecture in software and hardware to futureproof the missiles for that.”
An updated inertial navigation unit (INU) replaces that in the original Bolide. A new launch tube uses lighter carbon fibre instead of glass components, helping with fully automated production, Rydberg said.
Bolide 2 has a larger warhead and better terminal flight performance than the initial Bolide, according to Saab. A redesign to reduce the size of some of the missile's internal components allowed 50% more explosives and 40% more of the 3 mm tungsten pellets inside the warhead. “That doesn't create a wider kill zone, but a denser one,” Rydberg said.
Shown live-fire test videos comparing a Bolide and Bolide 2, Janes noted that the Bolide 2 pressure wave was visibly more powerful and did more damage to the steel box target.
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