Wescom Defence expands POMBS production

In response to a tenfold increase in demand over the past two years, Wescom Defence has raised production of its Portable Obstacle Minefield Breaching System (POMBS) and expanded its manufacturing facilities to deliver on the upturn in customer requirements.

As part of the Wescom Group, Wescom Defence draws on over a century of technical expertise in the design, manufacture and delivery of innovative, field-proven solutions that meet mission-critical requirements worldwide. With production and testing facilities in the UK, Australia, Germany and Spain, the group operates over 293,000 m² of energetic materials manufacturing space, focused on Class 1.1–1.4 pyrotechnics, fully supported by in-house design, engineering and NATO-compliant quality and assurance teams.

Conventional minefields, booby traps, unexploded ordnance and man-made obstacles can easily stall ground-based operations, incur delay and increase risk to exposed troops. Traditional clearing methods are slow, high-risk and require specialist training, while heavy armoured capability often unavailable or unsuitable for the terrain needed to be breached. Wescom Defence has developed the Light and Heavy POMBS variants to quickly restore operational momentum.

Systems integration reflects increasing demand for uncrewed combat engineering capabilities under drone threat

POMBS is a modular backpack-carried system that launches a detonating cord carrying explosive packages using a rocket, which, on detonation, clears a safe lane. Heavy POMBS is two backpacks and clears a safe lane 55m long by half a metre wide.

Light POMBS is one backpack that produces a safe path 74m long with 1m interval cleared stepping zones. Both systems are easy to use, require minimal training and have been operationally proven and are classed as Technical Readiness Level 9 by NATO MOD standards. Wescom Defence also supplies training variants to support the safe and effective adoption of its products by new customers.

The company recently unveiled a new configuration of Milrem Robotics’ THeMIS unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), integrating the H-POMBS module developed in cooperation with KNDS Deutschland and Wescom Group. Designed to create lanes through obstacles while operators remain at a stand-off distance, this setup highlights H-POMBS’ integration flexibility and reflects surging demand for uncrewed combat engineering capabilities under drone threat. The system was recently demonstrated to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz during a training exercise in Munster.

David Griffiths, VP Defence Sales from Wescom Defence, said: “The team at Wescom Defence, which includes in-house design, industrial engineering and manufacturing capability, is proud to have expanded our POMBS manufacturing in such short order to meet the unprecedented surge in demand for our products.

“This production increase and recent UGV integrations with partner KNDS Deutschland underline our capacity to continue providing NATO forces with effective and reliable capabilities at pace.”