What's the status of Armiger?

[Grand Danois]

Googled it up, but it has been removed from Diehl BGT's website...

http://www.diehl-bgt-defence.de/index.php?id=563&L=1

It was, however, still Googlecached:

Armiger

The Armiger anti-radar guided missile which is currently being developed within a technology demonstration program has been designed for engaging enemy air defence and ground targets which can be rapidly relocated. Armiger might become the successor to the HARM missile. Small dimensions and low launch mass, high flight velocity (Mach 3) and mission range (up to 200km) as well as precision hit accuracy due to its bispectral seeker and GPS/INS guidance ensure early and reliable elimination of air defence sites. Essential features of this missile are its ARAS seeker head with wide-band radar receiver and IR seeker developed by Diehl BGT Defence in cooperation with EADS for precise terminal attack with direct hit as well as its solid-propellant ramjet for high supersonic flight speed and long range. Armiger can therefore also destroy targets which switch off their radar during the attack or which use electronic countermeasures.

Cached Diehl BGT website

So what's up? Has it been cancelled, still being pursued or has another program taken its place?

It would be a very nice missile for the Eurofighter vs those double-digit SAM's...

 

[turin]

Its basically dead, or say, inert. The german officials wont fund the complete program, so as long as no external money comes in, you wont see any progress there. It is not officially cancelled, thats why they currently designate it as "technology demonstrator".

I guess when the Harm starts proving inadequate in combat and we lose the first pilots, they would start to fund Armiger...

 

[Grand Danois]

Its basically dead, or say, inert. The german officials wont fund the complete program, so as long as no external money comes in, you wont see any progress there. It is not officially cancelled, thats why they currently designate it as "technology demonstrator".

I guess when the Harm starts proving inadequate in combat and we lose the first pilots, they would start to fund Armiger...

That's too sad. It is such an obvious missile to make, especially for the Eurofighter, that if the Germans won't make it somebody else will. Like the Americans.

One could hope that the secretive Germans have just made it go unofficial...

 

[swerve]

That's too sad. It is such an obvious missile to make, especially for the Eurofighter, that if the Germans won't make it somebody else will. Like the Americans.

One could hope that the secretive Germans have just made it go unofficial...

Agreed.

Well, maybe the seeker can be saved. I wonder if it could be fitted to the Meteor?

 

[chrisrobsoar]

I will have to go back and check my figures but I think Armiger would have been small enough to be installed in the internal weapons bay of the F-35.

In several articles it has been suggested that the Armiger sensor could be integrated with the Meteor missile. Perhaps suspension of the Armiger program is an indication that such a development will precede.

Both HARM and ALARM are getting rather long in the tooth and will soon need to be replaced. Perhaps another missile (from the US) may offer an alternative and provide too much competition for the Armiger.

It looks like I need to carry out a little research into Hard Kill systems for surface radars.


Chris

 

[Grand Danois]

In general, I would prefer the specialist missile for this kind of task.

As Armiger has about twice the range of the 100+ km Meteor and has a low flying profile (where did I get this from?!) it should on the face of it should be better. However, the Meteor is M4+, whereas the Armiger is M3+, reducing reaction time for the defence.

It might also be easier to get a proper fix on the target from a range of 100 km (~1 min 15 sec) than 200 km (~3 min 20 sec).

Boils down to what is practical and efficient in terms of lethality.

It could be there are considerable savings in R&D, integration, production, maintenance, etc. by using the Meteor as an ARM...

 

[Scorpion82]

The ARMIGER is still a demonstrator programme. The problem is that the german MoD don't want to pay for such a specialized weapon yet. They are more interest into a kind of multirole weapon which could be based on the ARMIGER if required. I doubt somewhat that ARMIGER will fly low at all. The reaso why the weapon has such a significant longer range than Meteor is primarily due to the fact that it doesn't need much energy to manoeuvre. An airborne target requires much more manoeuvres consuming energy.

The Luftwaffe intents to use UCAVs in future for the SEAD role which is currently conducted by Tornado ECRs.

 

[Grand Danois]

Regarding that "low flying" flight path - the classic HARM flies in a ballistic trajectory for max range in preplanned missions. A ramjet with 200 km range could exchange range with a Hellfire type flight path. But again, I don't know where I got that idea from...

F-35 or a UCAV will most likely do well with METEOR + ARAS against targets of opportunity and preplanned attacks.

Anyhow, actually succeeded in finding a decent article - from 2001 - in German.

Zukünftige SEAD-Flugkörper

 

[Scorpion82]

2001 is rather old. My information is newer, but its not an internet source so I can't give the link. I don't remember how new the source is but something between 2004 and 2006.