- Polyphem missile
The Polyphem was a proposed light-weight fibre-optic
wire-guided surface-to-surface missile with a range of 60 km.It uses a
sealed round , asolid propellant booster rocket to launch the missile out of its canister to an initial height, so that the wings and control surfaces can unfold, and a more fuel economicturbojet cruise engine kicks in to propel the missile.The missile can be programmed to follow a preset course, using GPS or
inertial guidance . Aninfrared seeker can be used to automatically pick a target and for the terminal guidance phase, but it is also possible to transfer the thermal images back to the launching platform via a 200 MBit/s data link provided by anoptical fibre , and manually select the target.The Polyphem program was started in
1994 byGermany ,France andItaly . Italy later left the project.A naval version, called Polyphem-S, was initially selected for the
Braunschweig class corvette as anti-ship andland-attack missile , but that has been cancelled.The Polyphem program as a whole was canceled in
2003 . [ [http://www.reports.eads.net/eads/ar_2003_en/pages/master.php?id=a_1_6_1_4 Annual Report and Reference Document 2003 - EADS] ]"Polyphem" is the german Name of
Polyphemus , the cyclops in the "Odyssey " that got his eye stabbed out by Ulysses.The system is roughly comparable to the Serbian
ALAS missile .pecifications
*Speed: 120—180 m/s (around 430—650 km/h)
*Range: up to 60 km
*Altitude: 20 to 600 m above ground (variable)
*Missile mass: around 130 kg
*Length: 2.70 m
*Warhead: up to 20 kgNotes
References
* [http://www.army-technology.com/projects/polyphem/ POLYPHEM - army-technology.com]
* [http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/1998/10/28/44328/Striking+possibility.html Striking possibility - Flight Global]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
