British air-defense new Land Ceptor SAM missile completes first firing trials
Land Ceptor -a new missile by MBDA that is at the heart of British air-defense completes its first successful firing trials
Built by MBDA, Land Ceptor comprises the Common Anti-air Modular Missile (CAMM), a launcher vehicle and two fire unit support vehicles. It is being developed to protect British troops on operations from aerial threats, including hostile combat aircraft and air-launched munitions.
Land Ceptor is highly mobile, can be rapidly deployed across challenging terrain, and be brought into action in less than 20 minutes.
Land Captor comes from the same family of weapons systems as Sea Ceptor, which will defend the Royal Navy’s Type 23 and Type 26 Frigates. This trials firing is an important stepping stone towards bringing Land Ceptor into service as part of the wider Sky Sabre air defence system of British Army.
Land Ceptor has far greater battlefield awareness and intelligence than the current Rapier system as its engagement range is three times greater and the Giraffe radar and Rafael Battlespace Management Command, Control, Compute, Communicate and Inform (BMC4I) system within Sky Sabre will be able to observe incoming threats from seven times further away.
The missiles can be launched in quick succession to defeat as many as eight different threats at once, even if obstacles such as trees and terrain are in the way.
The trial of Land Ceptor, which followed previous munitions tests, was the first time Land Ceptor had been test-fired as a whole system, including the cutting-edge SAAB Giraffe radar. Land Ceptor performed as expected and the firing has helped to verify innovative modelling of overall system performance.
Trials took place close to the Baltic Sea on a Swedish test fire range, with video footage showing a missile being launched from a vehicle and destroying an aerial target in a display of the new weapon’s accuracy and power
The system will now undergo further development and trials before Sky Sabre enters service, in the early 2020s.
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson had recently announced that Sea Ceptor’s entering service with the Royal Navy proves CAMM’s effectiveness both in the land and maritime environments.
The development and manufacture of Land Ceptor is enabled through a £250 million contract between Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) and MBDA.
Note : To understand soft vertical launch of Sea Ceptor go to this link of Defence Express
