U.S. Army
The Army’s Multi-Mission Launcher is expected to fire a variety of missiles.
Posted on 08/28/2015 5:05:43 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The Army and Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems have test-fired the latest version of the company’s venerable Sidewinder air-to-air missile from a ground launcher to down an unmanned aircraft target, the company said Wednesday.
WHAT HAPPENED
Raytheon said that an AIM-9X Block II Sidewinder missile was launched from a prototype Multi-Mission Launcher, a new ground-based launch system under development by the Army. The test was performed in March at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, and details were announced by the company Wednesday.
The AIM-9X missile locked onto an unmanned aircraft before launch and then intercepted and destroyed the drone, which was flying 1,500 meters above ground level.
WHY IT’S SIGNIFICANT
The supersonic, heat-seeking Sidewinder is normally fired from aircraft at aerial targets, and Raytheon said the test demonstrated that the latest AIM-9X variant can also be used without modification for ground-based air defense.
Originally developed for the Navy in the 1950s, the Sidewinder has been fielded by more than 30 allied nations and was first used by U.S. fighters during the Vietnam War. Eighteen nations currently field the AIM-9X, which Raytheon has been making for 14 years. The Block II version, declared operationally ready in March, adds a datalink to direct the missile to its target in mid-flight.
WHAT’S A MULTI-MISSION LAUNCHER?
Pause Current Time 0:00 / Duration Time 0:00 Loaded: 0%Progress: 0%0:00 Fullscreen 00:00 Unmute As its name suggests, the Multi-Mission Launcher is designed to fire a variety of missile types. In the same test with the AIM-9X, the launcher fired another missile carrying an Army-developed “low-cost active seeker,” as well as a Miniature Hit-to-Kill vehicle — designed to destroy its targets by sheer impact — made by Lockheed Martin. Both successfully flew planned non-intercept flights, the Army said.
The launcher is designed to provide 360-degree protection while firing at multiple targets at the same time. Besides unmanned aircraft, potential targets include cruise missiles, rockets, artillery and mortars.
WHAT’S NEXT?
The Army plans to continue testing and expects the launcher to be ready for service by 2019. Raytheon said it expects the Sidewinder to be a main weapon used with the launcher.
U.S. Army
The Army’s Multi-Mission Launcher is expected to fire a variety of missiles.
This is just an update to the old Chappral (Sidewinder) anti-aircraft system of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-72_Chaparral
The arrival sounds great.The only question I have is it cost effective to use a highly expensive sidewinder missile against an inexpensive drone?
It would probably be cheaper using LASERs to take out those drones.Not to mention faster as well.
Sounds like the military is returning to tank warfare. This configuration is used to defend tanks from aircraft attacks.
Holy carp, using a sidewinder misile to take out a mortar round? That doesn’t make a hell lot of sense to me.
I don’t think that’s the idea; the Sidewinder’s a heat-seeking missile, and mortar rounds aren’t particularly hot.
What i have seen of drones, are that they are kept aflight by electrical motors, unless we are talking the ones that are actual airframes with missiles under the wings, which are not ‘drones’, but ‘remotely piloted vehicles’.
Electrical motors do not put out much of a heat signature, considering that the motors are cooled by the very propellers they power.
The ‘rpv’s’ actually use turboprops or small jet engines, either of which DO create a heat signature.
The ‘chapparal’ system was a tracked/wheled vehicle with four Sidewinders mounted. Another heat-tracking missile is the Stinger shoulder fired missile, which also was mounted on wheeled vehicles, and as an R&D project, mounted on the turret of tanks, and lastly, mounted on the turret of the PHALANX CIWS system, mounted on either wheeled/tracked vehicles.
I believe the AIM-9X and similar missiles have imaging IR seekers that are far better suited for track low-heat and stealth targets.
UV seeker as well.
They use IR/UV in combination as most aircraft these days will glint in the UV spectrum.
And if they take the radar seeker from the experimental radar homing Stinger, or combine it with the other two seeker modes, it will be interesting indeed.
I led two Chaparral platoons back in the 70s. I've been out of the Army so long, the battalion I served in was deactivated at least 15 years ago.
Makes sense one artillery battery can serve multiple functions just by swapping ammunition
dear comrade sukhoi,
the AIM-9x series has been around since the 1950’s.
All the launch systems have been going through the wringer since that time. This latest picture shows the missiles inside ‘launcher containers’, which does make handling the missiles a lot easier for the fragile electronics than boxing/unboxing and hoisting them onto external launcher rails.
The Stinger missiles were developed and began production in the 1980’s, of which I participated.
Could be.
Article also mentions artillery rounds, which I would expect would be relatively warm from friction with the barrel.
Sounds like you may not have had a large mortar fired at you.
Perhaps the Army is re-discovering the need for air defense, eventhough ISIS doesn’t have an air force, yet.
My battalion provided SHORAD to 3 airbases. I did two years at our battery at Hahn, and 2 years at Battalion HQ: assistant S-3, ending with about 18 months as S-4. Hated to leave, but it was time to return to the States.
Good, we finally found you.
We hope you kept your uniform.
IMHO the chap (with its proximity fuse) has enough explosive to divert the incoming large mortar or artillery, but not enough penetration to destroy the round.
From an old US Army Air Defender standpoint, this is just more mother Raytheon crap.
I worked at the Air Defense Board in the early 80s. One of the things I noticed right off the bat was the previous five Board Presidents went to work for Raytheon shortly after retiring from active duty.
I found the "reunions" at testing sites to be quite nauseating.
Somebody should have gone to jail over the money wasted on SGT York. I read the test results.
I need to drop 30 lbs to fit into it. My field jacket fits though, as long as there’s only a t-shirt underneath...lol.
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