Warhead technology: warheads are being fielded and developed to meet modern requirements in order to precisely engage targets from close range to longer ranges and reduce collateral damage.

From hand grenades to long-range rockets, armies are seeking munitions that will deliver a precise effect on a target and reduce the risk of collateral damage. Thus, fewer munitions are needed to neutralise or destroy a target, a scenario that also offers significant logistical advantages. Achieving this effect can depend upon a variety of factors which, in turn, depend on the weapon: these include the target acquisition and fire control system, the guidance system, the aerodynamics of the missile or shell and the warhead itself. Ultimately, the efficacy of any munition depends upon the effectiveness of its warhead.

Controlled Fragmentation

The simplest munition system in terms of its delivery is the hand grenade; the accuracy of its delivery on the battlefield is a combination of strength, nerve, training and luck. However, the lethal effects of hand grenades can be significantly improved through innovative design. In 2005 Switzerland's Ruag Ammotec began trials of the Pearl hand grenade that it first unveiled at Eurosatory 2004. The company is keen to repeat the success of its earlier HG85 grenade which was bought by several customers including the British, Dutch, Luxembourg and Swiss armies. The modular design of the Pearl enables the customer to specify what lethal effect is required. The spherical RDX-TNT explosive core of the grenade can be provided in diameters from 49 mm to 63 mm depending upon how much force the user requires. Instead of a pre-fragmented casing the grenade has a composite material body in which resides one or two layers of perfectly calibrated steel balls (pearls). Depending on the grenade type the balls can be in one of six sizes ranging from 1.58 mm to 3 mm in diameter. The Pearl generates 60% more fragments than the HG85 of the same size and weight or, inversely, it can be assembled to provide the same effect at the HG85 with a weight saving of up to 30%. According to Ruag, << some of the Pearl configurations penetrate both steel plate (of two mm thickness at a distance of five metres) and bulletproof vests as per Stanag 4512 >>. An advantage of perfectly controlled fragmentation is that the lethal range is known and consistent.

Since 2002 Ruag has demonstrated that its Mortar Anti-Personnel Anti-Materiel (Mapam) technology can improve the effectiveness of mortar bombs by a factor of two or three. Indeed, no two standard bombs of the same type currently in service will provide a similar fragmentation. It is thus difficult to accurately predict the effect on the enemy while friendly troops cannot call for fire too close to their own position. Like the Pearl grenade, Mapam bombs use a matrix of steel balls and epoxy inside a thin casing that provides increased lethality with a predictable dispersion pattern. A 60 mm bomb, the first to be developed, contains more than 2400 balls, while an 81 mm bomb contains more than 4800. During trials of the 60 mm bomb most balls were dispersed at a height of one metre at a distance ten metres from the point of detonation. Ruag is developing a 120 mm Mapam bomb which will disperse four containers that deploy beneath asymmetric parachutes. The containers will be detonated by a proximity fuse and the explosive matrix is shaped so that most balls are dispensed in a cone downwards. An anti-personnel container would disperse approximately 3300 four mm balls while an anti-materiel container would disburse about 425 eight-mm balls. Bombs could thus be configured for anti-personnel, anti-materiel or multipurpose use. According to Ruag, 60 mm Mapam bombs are three times as effective as conventional HE bombs, 81 mm Mapam bombs twice as effective as conventional ammunition while the 120 mm Mapam will be more than 2.5 times as effective. Ruag's Mapam technology is incorporated in the XM1046 60 mm mortar bomb now in the final stages of development for the US Army, and the service plans to leverage Mapam technology for future 81 mm ammunition.

Following an expedited development programme, the new General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems M1028 120 mm canister round was fielded in 2005 for use by US Army and US Marine Corps M1A1/M1 A2 Abrams main battle tanks deployed in Iraq. The project was launched in response to a 1999 requirement from US Forces in Korea for an anti-personnel round that could be used against dismounted anti-tank guided missile teams. The programme documents stipulated, ,,The range requirements for the canister cartridge are 200 to 500 metres (threshold) and 100 to 700 metres (objective). The requirement is to defeat equal to or greater than 50% of a ten-man squad with one shot, and equal to or greater than 50% of a 30-man platoon with two shots. >> Essentially a large shotgun shell, the round dispenses approximately 1100 tungsten balls as soon as it clears the muzzle. It can also be used against light-walled buildings and soft-skinned vehicles. Dense tungsten balls are used to reduce the velocity drop, thereby reducing dispersion. Previously tank crews would have used the M830A1 high explosive anti-tank round, which was less effective in the anti-personnel and posed a much higher risk of collateral damage The round was chosen as one of the army's top ten inventions in 2004 and was typed classified the in June 2005. Alliant Techsystems is developing the XM1040 105 mm canister round for use by the Stryker Mobile Gun System. In mid-2003 the company received a contract to provide 100 XM1040 cartridges for design evaluation and testing, to be followed by 1100 rounds for low-rate initial production.

Kinetic Energy 

The Lockheed Martin Compact Kinetic Energy Missile (CKem) originated in the US Army's Line of Sight Anti-Tank (Losat) project which was intended to provide the army's five light infantry divisions with a missile that could kill any tank. The Losat project was terminated when it became clear that the army had no immediate need for such a system. However, Losat technology has been 'pulled through' in the development of the CKem to produce a 1.52-metre missile that weighs less than 45 kg compared to the 2.74-metre, 79-kg Losat.

Project officials believe that no active protection system now projected will be able to react fast enough to defeat the CKem, which travels at a speed of Mach 6 to ranges of eight km. Similarly, no projected armour will withstand the 35 megajoules of energy that the CKem delivers; by comparison a typical 120 mm tank round strikes with about eight megajoules of energy.

Demonstrating the need for modern weapons to engage a variety of targets Lockheed Martin announced at the end of September that it had successfully conducted a guided test flight of the CKem against a reinforced urban structure at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The flight was the second of four guided test flights scheduled for 2006, with the last two tests designed to demonstrate CKem's ability against enhanced reactive armour. Current thinking within Lockheed Martin is that the CKem could be mounted on a Hummer to equip the army's light brigades and then possibly mounted on the Stryker Anti-tank Guided Missile (ATGM) variant or even on the Mule robot.

Turning to the Tow, new warheads have been introduced in recent years to enable both missiles to engage targets in urban terrain. The Tow Bunker Buster uses an HE-filled titanium chisel-point warhead that can breach a 20-cm-thick, double reinforced concrete wall. In common with other Tow warheads the Bunker Buster is produced by Aerojet. The Tow Bunker Buster has been fielded with the US Army's Stryker Brigades.

Another anti-armour missile to have been modifed is the Hellfire. Originally developed as the principle armament of the Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, it is in service with 17 forces around the globe. The company has recently been cleared to market the Hellfire II AGM-114N missile with a thermobaric Metal Augmented Charge (Mac) warhead. The Mac warhead was developed in response to an urgent requirement from the US Marine Corps in 2002 for a Hellfire II missile to attack multi-room structures and similar targets. The missile uses the same electronic safe/ arm/fire device used in the AGM-114M (blast/fragmentation) missile, and the same guidance and control section and propulsion section used in the AGM-114K (anti-armour) and the AGM-114M missiles. The new 3.63-kg warhead section uses a 'novel explosive fill and a new warhead case' to create a sustained pressure wave for use against buildings, caves and bunkers. More than 1000 missiles have been ordered since the first 61 AGM-114N were delivered to the US Marine Corps in 2003.

Indirect Fire

By year-end the British Army is scheduled to receive the first of 50,000 105 mm Improved Ammunition rounds ordered from BAE Systems in early 2005 under a contract worth about 17 million [pounds sterling]. The new high explosive (HE) ammunition will provide improved lethality over the present generation of ammunition and also incorporates the company's polymer bonded explosive insensitive munition technology, which offers improved safety. According to BAE Systems the round is 20% more effective than the ammunition it is replacing. Deliveries under the initial contract will be spread over three years the Future Artillery Weapons Systems Integrated Project Team (Faws IPT) within the Defence Procurement Agency anticipates further buys over the next twelve years. The BAE Systems Land Systems 105 mm Light Gun is the primary artillery weapon used to support British forces on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) has proven its effectiveness in combat in 1991 and 2003, and has since been used in different scenarios than those for which it was designed. Instead of saturation fire, commanders are seeking precision fire at longer ranges. On 4 November 1998 the US Department of Defense, which was also representing its counterparts France, Germany, Italy and Britain, awarded Lockheed Martin Vought Systems a contract for the 48-month System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase of the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) project. Equipped with a global positioning system/inertial measurement unit guidance system, the M30 can deliver a warhead to a five-metre circular error of probability beyond 70 km, and its warhead carries a payload of 404 M77 Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition submunitions. Lockheed Martin received a $119 million contract in October 2003 covering the SDD phase for the XM31 GMLRS Unitary, which features a single 89-kg high-explosive fragmentation warhead developed by General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems. The unitary warhead has a tri-mode fuze which allows airburst, point-impact and delay detonation modes--this was successfully demonstrated at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico in late 2005. As a part of the Production Qualification Test flight test series the GMLRS Unitary rocket demonstrated its ability for point, delay and proximity detonation at both short and long range.

Since the completion of the M30 SDD phase the US Army has placed three low-rate initial production contracts for 1917 M30 rockets and 498 Unitary Urgent Materiel Release (UMR) rockets. The Unitary UMR rocket is an interim weapon in response to an Urgent Need Statement from the US Army Aviation & Missile Command in March 2004 to support operations in Iraq. The Unitary UMR rockets are fitted with a point detonation/delay fuze, as development of the tri-mode fuze is continuing. The first 72 Unitary UMR rockets were delivered by June 2005 and 14 were fired the following September in operations around the city of Tal Afar to destroy two insurgent strongholds and a bridge. << The GMLRS proved itself in combat in Tal Afar and provided the regiment with tremendous capability, >> said Colonel H R McMaster, who commanded the operation.

In early 2005 Lockheed Martin received a $12.5 million modification to its GMLRS Unitary rocket SDD contract to accelerate the test programme by 21 months; and in July 2006 it received a modification to its M30 LRIP contract to provide Unitary UMR warheads for some of these rockets. These will be delivered in the fourth quarters of 2006 and 2007. General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems was selected earlier this year by the army and Lockheed Martin to manufacture production warheads until 2020. The British Army is following the US Army's example as only two weeks after placing a 30.5 million [pounds sterling] contract for the M30 the British Ministry of Defence switched the order to XM31 warheads. Brian Hardy, the Faws programme manager within the UK's Defence Procurement Agency, explained the change, << Hazardous dud submunitions from a bomblet warhead continue to pose a danger after the battle has been fought. By replacing the existing bomblet rocket with this unitary warhead we are completely removing this danger. >> As British deliveries are scheduled to begin before the end of 2006 the initial rockets will be fitted with the Unitary UMR warhead.

Enhancements to the GMLRS Unitary warhead are already under development. Lockheed Martin announced in July that it successfully tested a unitary Enhanced Blast Warhead (EBW) on the GMLRS at White Sands Missile Range which promises a higher degree of lethality than the XM31 GMLRS Unitary warhead. The EBW variant has been designed for use against urban targets. MBDA in conjunction with Aerojet is proposing a variant of the Bang warhead, already in French Army service, to equip European GMLRS rockets. A Bang warhead was fitted to the missile launched a White Sands on 21 July 2005 as part of the GMLRS Extended Range Technology Demonstrator Programme (TDP). MBDA was the prime contractor for the TDP under a contract awarded in April 2004 by the British Ministry of Defence. The Bang also features a tri-mode fuze.

The proposed $752 million sale of 20 Himars launchers to the United Arab Emirates, of which the US Congress was notified in September includes 130 M31 Unitary GMLRS Pods.

The Lockheed Martin Army Tactical Missile System (Atacms) Block 1A Quick Reaction Unitary (QRU) missile is able to strike targets out to a range of 270 km. The system was first tested in April 2001 after an accelerated development programme of only four months. It was subsequently used in Operation 'Iraqi Freedom'. The weapon is built by replacing the standard antipersonnel/anti-materiel warhead of the Atacms Block 1A with the 213-kg unitary warhead and fuze that is used in the Boeing AGM-84 Harpoon Stand-Off Land Attack Missile. In July 2006 Lockheed Martin received $36 million for production of the Atacms Unitary Product Improvement missile. The missile's first flight is expected in January 2008. The Product Improvement Program will introduce a multi-function fuze/warhead system capable of executing airburst, point-detonate or delayed trigger missions in a similar manner to the GMLRS Unitary Rocket.