Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC
Northrop Grumman has begun looking at alternative missile applications for the Brilliant Anti-Armour Submunition (BAT). This follows a long-awaited initial production order to fit the acoustically-guided weapon to the Lockheed Martin MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACM).
The manufacturer is discussing installing BAT into the US Air Force's Tactical Munitions Dispenser and the US Navy's Raytheon Tactical Tomahawk. The army is also looking at a shorter-range application by fitting the weapon to a guided munition for the Lockheed Martin Multi-Launch Rocket System.
BAT will enter service with the US Army in 2001, fitted to the Block II version of ATACM, under a newly-awarded $87.8 million low-rate initial production (LRIP) contract. The Army has also awarded a LRIP for ATACM.
A second LRIP contract will follow next year for another 650 BATs, after which it will go into full scale production at Northrop Grumman's recently-dedicated production plant at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.
The company is planning to produce up to 20,000 submunitions by 2011, according to BAT's deputy programme director, Harry Quandt.
System development has been prolonged by the cancellation of the earlier subsonic Northrop Grumman Tri Service Standoff Attack Missile, which was BAT's original application. Switching to the supersonic ATACMs required modifying BAT with a Primex Deceleration and Stabilisation Subsystem (DSS).
"Dispensing from a vehicle becomes much more of an issue at supersonic speeds," says Quandt. DSS uses a gas generator to inflate a stabiliser which is sustained by ram air. It is jettisoned once BAT has slowed to subsonic speed and can deploy its four fold-away tail fins and wings that mount the acoustic sensors.
The four acoustic sensors are designed to detect and guide the unpowered BAT towards characteristic sound frequencies of moving armour. Guidance is supplemented by a Raytheon infra-red search and homing seeker. "BAT represents a new class of totally autonomous weapons…
it is the first to be acoustically-guided," says Quandt.
Source: Flight International