DefenseNews: U.S. Army Tests Guided Tank Rounds
When the U.S. Army fires a precision munition, it generally comes from a helicopter, a rocket or missile system, or even field artillery. But if the Mid-Range Munition program stays on track, tank crews will have guided shells of their own after 2012, Army officials say.
Army officials at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., are testing one shell by ATK and one by Raytheon and General Dynamics in an effort to field a 120mm munition that can hit enemy targets — with or without much human help. Both appear to have met requirements thus far, said U.S. Army Col. Charles Bush, who runs the Army’s Future Force Division....
Launched in 2002, the Mid-Range Munition program has spent about $108 million so far, said Mark Young, science and technology manager, Line-of-Sight/Beyond Line-of-Sight Munitions Division, Picatinny Arsenal. They expect to release a request for proposals later in April to kick off a 63-month system design-and-development phase, to be followed by initial production around 2012. The rounds are intended to arm the Future Combat System’s Mounted Combat System vehicle when the FCS vehicles are fielded in 2015, Bush said.
The Raytheon-General Dynamics (GD) round, which is tipped with an explosive warhead and guided by small fins, carries two kinds of sensors.
A 3-inch infrared camera takes snapshots of the view ahead 30 times a second, sending the blocks of pixels to a computer that finds edges and shapes. The computer can pick out not just tanks, trucks or buildings, but their most vulnerable points. “We can look for the barrel and other features on the tank, accurately aiming the round to a soft part of the tank to penetrate easier,” said Raytheon program manager Rick Williams.
The round also carries a laser detector to spot reflected light from a designator carried by hand or slung under an unmanned aerial vehicle or aircraft. The two sensors can also act together to defeat modern laser countermeasures.
“Most modern tanks have a laser warning system, so whenever a laser hits, they pop smoke that prevents infrared imaging and lasers from penetrating,” said Raytheon spokesman Everett Tackett. But the Raytheon shell can follow a laser that is pointed near — but not directly at — the target. As the shell falls toward the laser spot, it checks the infrared picture up ahead and steers toward the nearest thing that resembles a tank....
On March 1, a test shell flew more than three miles and hit a T-72 tank at Yuma Proving Grounds, Ariz., Williams said.....
The other round is made by ATK. It too has a dual-mode seeker, but in place of the infrared camera, it mounts a millimeter-wave radar engineered to see through smoke, clouds and fog, said Dave Wise, general manager of ATK’s advanced weapons division.....