12 Apr 11. Raytheon Company’s Missile Systems business delivered a record number of Evolved SeaSparrow Missiles last year. The company’s delivery of 366 ESSMs in 2010 more than doubled the previous year’s total.
“We accomplished this delivery record in 2010 by improving our already robust manufacturing and engineering processes and by responding to increased customer demand,” said Rick Nelson, vice president of Naval Weapon Systems at Raytheon Missile Systems. “This accomplishment is also a reflection of the efforts of our international partners throughout Europe, Canada and Australia and their contributions to the cooperative NATO SeaSparrow Project.”
07 Apr 11. Raytheon Company’s SLAMRAAM (Surface Launched Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile) system successfully destroyed an unmanned aerial vehicle target and intercepted a cruise missile target at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. The limited user test-firing data will be used to validate key system capabilities and potential enhancements in addition to providing operational assessment.”Successful completion of this test firing demonstrates the maturity of the design and its operational capability when in the hands of soldiers,” said Sanjay Kapoor, vice president for Patriot Programs at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. “SLAMRAAM is the most cost-effective system in development to combat the increasing unmanned aerial vehicle and cruise missile threat to our deployed forces, high-value fixed assets and population centres.”The primary objective of this series of tests was to demonstrate soldiers’ ability to operate the system in a tactical environment. In addition to manoeuvring and emplacing the system, the soldiers had to demonstrate the ability to properly operate the system to detect, identify, track, engage and destroy both types of threat. The U.S. Department of Defense recently announced that SLAMRAAM would be funded through development and testing and will maintain an emergency operational capability.
07 Apr 11. Israel’s Iron Dome short-range missile defense system intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza for the first time April 7 over the city of Ashkelon, an AFP correspondent said. A military source confirmed the rocket had been brought down by the unique multimillion-dollar system, which came into operation on March 27, the first time a short-range interceptor has been deployed anywhere. As the rocket came in from Gaza, the interceptor missile streaked up into the sky to hit it with the two trails converging in an explosion, the AFP correspondent said. A military source told AFP this was the first time that Iron Dome had hit a rocket in an actual combat operation. It was not immediately clear what kind of rocket it was. The rocket fire from Gaza came after Palestinian militants in Gaza fired an anti-tank rocket at an Israeli school bus, critically wounding a teenager. Later, militants fired dozens of mortars and rockets into Israel. Israel responded with air raids and tank shells, killing one Palestinian and wounding 25. The first Iron Dome battery was deployed outside Be’er Sheva, just days after the southern desert city was hit by several Grad rockets fired from Gaza. Ashkelon, which has a population of some 113,000, has also recently come under attack from Grads, which have a range of up to 50 kilometers (30 miles). The defense system, the first of its kind in the world and still at the experimental stage, is not yet able to provide complete protection against the hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel, officials have said. (Source: Defense News)
06 Apr 11. Croatia introduces MACS sniper rifle. Croatia’s state-owned Alan Agency (Agencija Alan) debuted its MACS M4 12.7 mm sniper rifle during the Adriatic Sea Defense and Aerospace (ASDA) 2011 exhibition held in Split, Croatia, in late March. The rifle has an overall length of 1.47 m and a barrel length of 78 cm; it fires 12.7×99 mm (0.50 Browning) cartridges loaded via a manually o