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Newsline
Successful qualification of pilot lot – international interest
Series launch for SMArt ammunition
Unterlüß. Following the recent, highly
successful qualification of the pilot
lot at the firing range of the German Army’s
technical center in Meppen, the
new sensor-fuzed ammunition for 155
mm artillery – generally known as
SMArt 155 – will now enter into seriesproduction.
The first units of this
smart, highly effective projectile are
due to be delivered to the German Army
in the near future. The project
which is being carried out by Rheinmetall
DeTec (Ratingen/Unterlüß)
and
Diehl (Nuremberg)
through their joint
company Gesellschaft
für intelligenteWirksysteme
(GIWS) has also
attracted considerable
interest internationally.
Commenting on Helmut Ortmann
the very successful outcome of the
presentation at the WTD range, Helmut
Ortmann, one of the managers of
Rheinmetall W&M GmbH, pointed out
that “the successful qualification of
the pilot lot in Meppen which was accompanied
by an equally successful
presentation to international defence
experts has delivered the proof for series-qualification.
We have presented
Our sketch illustrates the mode of operation of the submunition
of the SMArt 155 after ejection from the projectile.
an excellent result and have secured a
good position on the market. We will
therefore make the very best of the
technical and time advantage which
SMArt has over competing products.”
This strategic policy is also reflected
by the recent placement of the first series
order currently being executed by
the two partners Rheinmetall and
Diehl. The first series lot consisting of
250 systems will soon be delivered to
the German Army.
Ortmann rates the chances of SMArt
on the international market as good:
“Experts who have closely followed
the qualification of the pilot lot – including
defence specialists from Finland,
the Netherlands, the USA, Bahrein
and the United Arab Emirates – were
all very impressed by the high standards
of the project and the product.”
Representatives of the Swiss Army
who had been given the opportunity to
witness a demonstration of the new
sensor-fuzed ammunition at Meppen
in July this year reacted similarly. In the
words of Ortmann: “Our guests were
impressed. The decision on the use of
SMArt is expected shortly since Switzerland
intends to define the manufacturer
and the related type of ammunition
this year.”
The SMArt 155 is a joint project of the
companies Diehl (Nuremberg) and
Rheinmetall DeTec
AG, being performed
in equal shares
through the
joint venture GIWS
(Nuremberg). The
SMArt projectile as
such is a highly effective
artillery
projectile capable
of effectively engaging
hard and semi-hard
targets
with extreme precision.
It consists
of a thin-walled
projectile body
with an ejection
device that is triggered
by an electronic
time-fuze
and two nearly
identical submunitions.
These, in
turn, consist of the
26
With SMArt, the German Army will have
an intelligent type of ammunition.
orientation and stabilization unit, the
sensor fuze and the warhead with the
main explosive charge including the
safe and arming unit.
A word on the function of the submunition:
after ejection from the projectile
and transition into the stable descent
phase, each submunition spirally
searches the terrain below for targets
with its multi-mode sensors. Subsequent
to successful target identification
by the electronic signal processing
system of the sensor fuze, the
warhead with the actual explosive
charge is detonated. The projectile forged
by the explosion is capable of penetrating
all modern vehicle armouring
including reactive armour systems
(e.g. additional armouring) and
of neutralizing the detected target. If
no target is found in the search area,
self-destruction of the submunition is
triggered at a certain altitude.