RBS 70
1977 man-portable surface-to-air missile system by Bofors
RBS 70 (Robotsystem 70) is a man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS) designed for anti-aircraft warfare in all climate zones and with little to no support from other forces. Originally designed and manufactured by the Swedish defence firm of Bofors Defence (now Saab Bofors Dynamics, since 2000). It uses the RB 70 missile, which is also in use in a number of other Swedish missile systems.
History
Before RBS 70 the mainstay of Swedish short range air defence was Robotsystem 69 (American Redeye) and the Swedish Bofors m/48 AAA. Development of the Rbs 70 to supply the Swedish air defence with a low-cost, easy-to-use and effective short-range SAM system began in 1969 when Bofors AB was contracted, who decided to use a novel guidance system in the form of a laser-beam riding missile co-developed with Laser Diode Laboratories. Further studies showed the need of a radar and an Identification friend or foe-system which were ordered from LM Ericsson and Svenska Aktiebolaget Trådlös Telegrafi (SATT) respectively in 1972.
This became the first missile system to fully use computer simulated firing, with some 10 000 shots taken during development. In 1975, the finished system went into series production, and RBS 70 was taken into service in 1977. In 1982, the missile was improved to MK I, while the MK II came in 1990. The fourth generation, the Mach 2 "BOLIDE" all target missile appeared in 2003 along with improvements of the IFF-system and the ability to add a BORC thermal imager. The auto-tracking RBS 70 Next Generation with an integrated thermal imager came in 2011, now with a range of 9000 metres and 5000 metre height coverage.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “RBS 70” as 1977 man-portable surface-to-air missile system by Bofors. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1346290. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2000, 1969, 1972 and 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “RBS 70” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.