Lockheed Martin is advocating accelerating the joint US-European Medium Extended Air Defence System (MEADS) programme by three to five years. This could solve Italy's requirement for a more immediate replacement of its Nike Hercules missile batteries.
The timetable for the US/ German/Italian system, recently agreed by the MEADS International consortium and the NATO MEADS Management Agency, calls for system introduction around 2011/12. Engineering and manufacturing development will last seven years but will not start before 2004 and will be preceded by a three-year risk reduction phase.
Italy is considering interim replacements of its elderly Nike Hercules, such as leasing Raytheon Patriot or Hawk missiles or acquiring the Eurosam SAMP-T. "With MEADS already coming along, we think the right solution is to accelerate MEADS rather than a band aid [interim] approach," says Lockheed Martin.
The company suggests the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) based MEADS programme could be compacted into five to seven years which would remove the need for an interim missile. Development of PAC-3 for the US Army has just been completed, following the latest in a series of successful intercepts, clearing the way for operational testing of the system to begin in January.
Lockheed Martin says 12 of the 13 PAC-3 tests over the past three years have been successful, including nine intercepts out of 10 attempts giving the system a 92% success rate. During the last test on 19 October the system was fired against multiple cruise missiles, with a PAC-3 destroying a low flying BQM-74 drone and a Patriot PAC-2 the higher flying target.
Source: Flight International
