South African State-owned defence industrial group Denel announced on Wednesday that extensive testing of the Denel Dynamics Umkhonto (“Spear”, in English) naval surface-to-air missile, for an export customer, will take place early next year. The Umkhonto forms part of the armament of two German-designed and -built Meko frigates being acquired by the customer navy.

The first of these ships, fitted with the Umkhonto, has already been delivered. The second completed its final sea acceptance trials in October.

The infrared-guided Umkhonto had previously been exported to Finland, and is today operational on 12 naval vessels at home and abroad. Eight of these are in service in the northern hemisphere. This “demonstrates that the South African defence industry can hold its own against the best of the world and that our products and systems are highly competitive,” affirmed Denel Dynamics CEO Tsepo Monaheng.

The programme to supply the missiles and their associated fire control equipment for the two Meko A200-AN frigates is codenamed Javelin. The programme is now coming to the end of its fourth year and next year will be its fifth and final year. Production of the missiles ordered by the export client will be completed during January.

“After four years of manufacturing, integration and commissioning we have now reached the final stages of the programme,” he reported. The final major stage will be live firings of the Umkhonto by the client navy in its home waters.

The prime contractor for the frigates is ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, while the prime contractor for the warheads is Rheimetall Waffe Munition. Both are German groups. (Rheinmetall owns the majority stake in South African company Rheinmetall Denel Munition, which produces warheads and rocket motors for Denel Dynamics missiles.)

Denel does not identify the customer country and navy. However, it has been widely reported in the international and local defence media that it is Algeria.

Certainly, the Algerian Navy has acquired two Meko A200 frigates, and they are designated A200-AN, which is the designation used by Denel in its press release. The A200-AN design is believed to be an improved version of the South African Navy’s A200-SAN frigate design, which is also armed with the Umkhonto.