The Big Leap Forward For Loitering Weapons
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עברית (Hebrew)
By ARIE EGOZI
Until recently the loitering weapon systems were considered by many armed forces as merely a nice thing to have, but not any more.
Armed forces are just now beginning to understand the potential in loitering weapon systems, but for the Israeli defense industries such systems are not new, and several such system are already operated.
The Harop, one of the most advanced loitering weapon system, has been developed by Israel aerospace industries (IAI) to destroy high quality targets. It consists of the munitions unit, transportable launcher and a mission control shelter, which provides real-time access to control the Harop by a man-in-the-loop.
The Harop can be launched from various transportable platforms including sea and ground based canisters or air launched to navigate towards the potential target area. It can be launched at any angle, horizontal or at a vertical trajectory. The sealed container ensures protection from harsh battlefield conditions.
The Harop is armed with a 23 kg warhead and is equipped with a very advanced day/night payload (POP-250) made by the Tamam division of IAI.
Harop has an operational range of 1,000 km and an endurance of six hours.
The Harop is big and heavy and built to destroy big heavy targets. But when a trend begins, sizes get diversified and that is exactly what is happening.
Recently, Flight revealed that Special forces of an unnamed country have ordered the Israeli developed Hero-30 system, the smallest version in a family of unmanned expendable air systems, manufactured by Uvision.
The Hero-30 loitering munitions is a small (3kg), expendable and very accurate munitions carried in a canister that is also used as a pneumatic launcher. After launch the electric motor is turned on.
The HERO-30 is 78 cm long, has a wingspan of 80 cm and is equipped with a day/night sensor and has an endurance of 30 minutes. After it is launched, it locks on the predesigned target and transmits the video to the operator using a hand held unit.
The HERO-30 is loitering in altitudes between 300 and 600 meters above the ground. The data link that was developed for the system can control it in ranges of 5 -10 or 40 km depending on the antenna used.
The system is currently armed with an anti personnel warhead but according to Uvision, other warheads will be available in the near future.
The demand for small loitering munitions systems has increased in recent years mainly due to the operational lessons from the war against global terror.
The capability of small units to attack sources of fire independently has become crucial in combat in urban areas.
That is the trend and Israeli sources say it already created an effort to develop more such systems. Some such efforts are in a very advanced stage of development while others are still only on the computer screens, but there is no doubt that the variety of loitering weapon systems is about to grow dramatically in the near future.
