MMP : France ’s New Portable Anti- Armor Missile



 France currently relies on wire-guided MILAN portable anti-tank missiles for its troops and vehicles, but the design was first introduced in the early 1970s. Despite a series of version upgrades, and tremendous export success to over 30 countries, the French found themselves forced to buy American Javelin missiles in 2010 as an Urgent Operational Requirement.

The goal is a missile whose attack modes can include fire and forget, man in the loop mode, re-assignment in flight, and even seeker lock-on after launch. As a medium missile, it needs to kill targets up to an including main battle tanks, while remaining effective in urban warfare scenarios that focus on reinforced buildings. Urban effectiveness has also driven a design that’s designed to be fired from confined spaces without barbecuing the operator.

Each missile in its tube weighs 15 kg/ 33.07 pounds, while the separate firing unit adds another 11 kg / 24.25 pounds. Launchers will also be designed for armored vehicles like France’s VBCI IFVs.
MMP’s command unit and missile use Sagem’s dual-mode uncooled infrared and visible channel seekers, and MEMS IMU inertial navigation. An uncooled IR seeker is especially useful, because it can be used very quickly, as opposed to cooled seekers like Javelin’s that require 30 or so seconds to become ready. MMP can also be directed against non-line of sight targets, cued via datalink from a UAV or other integrated system.

Once fired, communication between the missile and the firing unit relies on a fiber optic wire, allowing the operator to intervene with a manual override that’s almost impossible to jam.

The missile’s multipurpose tandem warhead is designed to defeat 2m of concrete or 1m of vehicle Rolled Homogenous Armor, and the tandem design will allow it to be effective against explosive reactive armor protection. Minimum (sic) lethal range against its full target set is listed as 2.5 km/ 1.34 miles, which includes disembarked personnel or personnel under hardened cover, as well as modern tanks.

MBDA says that MMP has an actual range of 4 km/ 2.16 miles, and an MLP variant aims to double that to 8 km. MLP will keep the basic MMP form factor, but lengthen the pop-out wings and make other improvements. It’s is scheduled to debut in 2018, with helicopter integration on Eurocopter’s EC665 Tiger HAD attack helicopters slated for 2020.

MMP and MLP missiles will also be candidates for integration on armored vehicles. The missile is slated to be paired with the unique CT40 turret on France’s future EBRC wheeled light tanks, and mock-ups have been shown on
MBDA has an order from France, but they’ll need to secure a number of export customers before the program can be deemed a success like the MILAN.

Key global competitors will include the Raytheon/Lockheed Martin Javelin missile (cooled IIR, no man in the loop), RAFAEL of Israel’s popular
Spike family (cooled IIR/optical, optional man in the loop), Raytheon’s now-wireless BGM-71 TOW family (optical, man in the loop), Russia’s AT-14 Korenet-E (laser beamrider), and Saab’s Bill 2 (optical, man in the loop) with its top attack profile.

Have you tried consulting Russian MoD,GRU,KGB database ? 

Yeah but let's say for our use to monitor SCS. Wouldn't this be a more economical and efficient platform for long-term monitoring? Maybe in hot situation can use normal AEW aircraft.

Additionally, curious also, once an aircraft has been targeted by missiles, how effective is it's maneuverability in overcoming this threat? Wouldn't the ECM and other countermeasures be more effective? The airship can have more of these (heck put a CIWS on it come to think of it).

Thanks for the reply, but the airship theoretically could be equipped with all of the above.

Do you know any more info on the test by the USAF? Especially on why it did not pan out? Anyway, this is just an idea that I thought maybe our country might want to look into.

Residents in Maryland and Pennsylvania saw the huge white blimp wandering aimlessly in the skies before crashing through power lines, leaving thousands without electricity. Two F-16s had to be scrambled to monitor the wayward blimp, while state troopers finally brought the blimp down by . The troopers resorted to firing shotgun pellets to puncture the blimp.

so whats difference between big and small aew

like USA use 707

others use 737 or biz jet

9hrs not counting air to air refuel?

Btw y  don't consider modern long haul jets like 787 or 777 they can fly  up 14/15 hrs

Flight time does not equal to loiter time.

They are not cheap one, second no one want to pay for put all those equipment onto a new jet. All the rearrangment to do again.

Structural strengthening for all those on board equipments. Power requirements for addition equipment mean modification to the APU.

Basically, no that it cant be done is just the matter who want to pay for it

I'm more on using smaller prop aircraft with globaleye aew tho.it's cheaper to procure and operate (which means we can get more of it) and since malaysia isn't that big, having a large aew like E-3 or even 737 aew would be counterproductive since it would be prohibitively expensive and at most we can only get like 2 of them

India completes price negotiation for Israeli Spike ATGMs

India's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has completed price negotiations with Israel's Rafael Advanced Defence Systems for Spike anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) systems for the Indian Army for an estimated USD1 billion.

Industry sources said on 26 May that the MoD's contract negotiation committee concluded consultations to acquire 275 launchers and 5,500 Spike missiles in completed and kit form along with an undisclosed number of simulators.

The deal also includes a technology transfer to India's state-owned Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) to build another 1,500 systems and around 30,000 additional missiles.

The contract for the manportable, fire-and-forget ATGMs featuring third-generation active/passive guidance systems, and a top-attack capability is likely to be confirmed before or during the visit of Israeli president Reuven Rivlin to India later this year, official sources said.

Deliveries are expected to be completed 48-60 months thereafter, while BDL will continue to licence-build the Spike for the next 20-25 years.

India's Kalyani Strategic Systems, which signed a joint venture with Rafael in February 2015, will also be involved in the Spike ATGM contract, supplying components and subassemblies from a newly erected facility in Hyderabad.

In 2009 the MoD approved the acquisition of 1,914 ATGM launchers and 37,860 missiles, including training rounds and 107 simulators, through direct imports and licensed manufacture to equip the Indian Army's 359-odd infantry battalions.

Rafael's Spike was the only ATGM to undergo user trials in 2010-11. Consequently over 50 of these guided missiles with a strike range of between 800 m and 4 km were tested and approved by the Indian Army.

Considering only 2 troopers were KIA, I'd say the PGA did a good job. Note that the Army also lost 2 soldiers, although one of them died in a traffic accident.

People who always cited that the PDRM lost a lot of men conveniently forgot that out of the 10 total casualties including the above, 6 were plainclothes Special Branch officers who were ambushed by heavily armed gunmen in Semporna water village.

They were investigating a tip off. Most probably thought it was just hearsay. Walked into a bunch of heavily armed intruders.