South African missiles/rockets/PGM's - Prototypes, Projects, Concepts, etc.

tyrin said:
Forgot to mention, if it goes through there would also be a chance of it being an air defense system in different versions not unlike the IRIS-T

Only problem is, Germans cant produce enough to deliver on time because of Ukraine and the UAE has better financing ability though its banks.

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Funny enough the land version as pictured above, of the IRIS-T was actually tested and qualified out in South Africa at our Denel Overberg test range...

There was a fair amount of talk of doing the same thing with A-Darter, in terms of turning it into a SAM at the time. The problem I suspect, is that it would have overlapped into UmKhonto's territory, which is suspect is a lot cheaper, uses the previous generation seeker head (U-Darter) - but is still very accurate and effective (search up Finnish real life tests of UmKhonto under very difficult conditions - they were very happy with it's successful results afterwards).

I agree that the Cheetah missile would be a much better bet - developed in South Africa, based on the existing Mongoose armour APS missile (under a contract placed on Denel by Rheinmetall Germany) - Denel developed it much faster and very, very much cheaper than what Rheinmetall are used to. So it's a cheap, but very effective C-RAM type missile.

To either lengthen the Cheetah, or perhaps much easier to add some sort booster to it would certainly improve it's range quite a bit from the current 8 Km max range. It's actually a very cheap 'Iron Dome' setup - with a shorter range, much more ready to launch missiles (60), and at a fraction of the cost..

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tyrin said:
As far as I know, yes. There isn't much left to save there but Astros/MTC-300 IP and their rocket production is still very valuable.
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If all the IP is still intact it shouldn’t be super hard to get A-Darter back up and running faster.


A-Darter motor test



View: https://youtu.be/Zanm3AYbJdc?feature=shared




And of course, if EDGE is interested in the A-Darter there’s a good chance they’re interested in the Marlin as well

They’re stealth UCAV program is running smoothly with mainly Brazilian(ex Embraer mostly as well as Akaer) and some South African expertise but they don’t have the A2A missiles required for it to be a revolutionary system yet.

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The latest Cheetah brochure - it adds in a lot more specs than the Rheinmetall one in my post #219 - it is from the latest Denel brochure pack, so Denel clearly still has the right and necessary IP to sell this missile..
 

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Graugrun said:
The latest Cheetah brochure - it adds in a lot more specs than the Rheinmetall one in my post #219 - it is from the latest Denel brochure pack, so Denel clearly still has the right and necessary IP to sell this missile..
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Which is super odd, will it be produced in both countries? They have different weights as well and dimensions.

Skyknight dimensions

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tyrin said:
If all the IP is still intact it shouldn’t be super hard to get A-Darter back up and running faster.


A-Darter motor test



View: https://youtu.be/Zanm3AYbJdc?feature=shared




And of course, if EDGE is interested in the A-Darter there’s a good chance they’re interested in the Marlin as well

They’re stealth UCAV program is running smoothly with mainly Brazilian(ex Embraer mostly as well as Akaer) and some South African expertise but they don’t have the A2A missiles required for it to be a revolutionary system yet.

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Well it would be great news to me if it gets a good kickstart to get going again - I was very pleased when Brazil first joined the A-Darter program, and very dissapointed when it fell apart (I'm still not sure today what the actual reason for that was) - I certainly think that we have a lot of synergy and a lot to offer each other as countries, and not just from a weapons point of view..!
 
tyrin said:
imo solutions like the Cheetah/Skyknight are the best solution. See @Graugrun post above about cost.

Keep up with the cost, probably not but with enough production you could get the missile down to a good price.
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And i don't believe it until i see an prove that they can do it. In the end bullets would allways be the cheaper option
 
kqcke for you said:
More like they more or less just finnished development at the time ukraine war started with then only 1 customer. Can't produce 1000s of missiles out of nothing but there pushing for increased production which should get to (i think) ~400 a year
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I don’t think that supplying the current conflict is an immediate consideration for Brazil, South Africa or the UAE. There is no obvious demand for 1000s let alone 400 A-Darters per year.
 
TinWing said:
I don’t think that supplying the current conflict is an immediate consideration for Brazil, South Africa or the UAE. There is no obvious demand for 1000s let alone 400 A-Darters per year.
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I do agree, 400 is quite high although I wouldn’t be surprised if they could produce around 200 a year.

UAE needs weapons for Rafale and their stealth UCAV Jeniah

Brazil needs for Gripen

South Africa needs for Gripen

As well as if the system is developed into a SAM with commonality to the AAM (E.G NASAMS)

If they could also integrate missile into other countries jets there is even more export potential there, Israel integrated Python variants into many other countries aircraft including Singapore. Most recently it integrated the Python-5 on RSAF F-16 C/D.



And no, they will never export it to Ukraine considering the governments of all 3 nations all have great relations with Russia and wouldn’t risk that to sell some missiles
 
Graugrun said:

General Atomics to integrate EDGE smart weapons with MQ-9B​


https://www.flightglobal.com/milita...-edge-smart-weapons-with-mq-9b/155802.article
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The DS-16 is in full production, an order for 7,000 units having been bagged, half of which in the SAL variant.

With the current production layout HALCON is capable to produce 50 DS-16 per shift

P3 bomb guidance kit, for Mk-81 250 lb bombs, named P-31, and Mk-82 500 lb bombs, P-32. The GNSS assisted INS version is in production at a pace of 27 per shift;

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This is a metric fuckton even considering how much UAE uses UCAVs

They’re rumored to have one of the biggest PGM stocks in the world

If recent world events are a reference, you will never have enough guided munitions


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tyrin said:
The DS-16 is in full production, an order for 7,000 units having been bagged, half of which in the SAL variant.

With the current production layout HALCON is capable to produce 50 DS-16 per shift

P3 bomb guidance kit, for Mk-81 250 lb bombs, named P-31, and Mk-82 500 lb bombs, P-32. The GNSS assisted INS version is in production at a pace of 27 per shift;

-

This is a metric fuckton even considering how much UAE uses UCAVs

They’re rumored to have one of the biggest PGM stocks in the world

If recent world events are a reference, you will never have enough guided munitions
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Crickey - That is some monster production! I know there was intergration testing done on the South Korean T-50 and obviously completed on the Mirage 2000, F-16 and the Tejas - the Turkish Bayraktar and Denel Seeker 400 too. So they might actuallt have some big foreign orders ruuning as well..

Do you know of any others?
 
Graugrun said:
Crickey - That is some monster production! I know there was intergration testing done on the South Korean T-50 and obviously completed on the Mirage 2000, F-16 and the Tejas - the Turkish Bayraktar and Denel Seeker 400 too. So they might actuallt have some big foreign orders ruuning as well..

Do you know of any others?
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Rafale is using Denel designed munitions as well so that opens up other customers and especially the Egyptian air force

Tri racked

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Foreign orders not sure, UAE needs are probably extremely high
 
xena said:
I suspect their needs are high because they supply other armed forces through military aid.
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Well, the possibilities are endless especially with developing drones. Eliminates the need for aircraft development, or working with OEMs to integrate them.

They poached a metric shit ton of Embraer/Brazilian engineers for drone programs and also have Sourh Africans working on them as well.
 

Denel upgrading Umkhonto missile​

https://www.defenceweb.co.za/industry/industry-industry/denel-upgrading-umkhonto-missile/​


"Denel is upgrading its Umkhonto surface-to-air missile (SAM) from the current Infra-Red (IR) Block II version to a more powerful weapon with better intercept capabilities.

This will be good news for Denel’s customers, including the South African Navy (SAN), the Finnish Navy and the Algerian Navy, all of whom currently use the Umkhonto. Also, the SA Army is interested in the ground-based version to compliment its current Ground Based Air Defence System (GBADS).

Denel Project/Programme Manager Willem Maré explained to defenceWeb the system has a ground-based version, fired from Denel’s Ground Based Launcher or potentially in a missile silo. The original design was for the SA Navy’s Valour Class frigates as an advanced air defence system.

Upgrades will include extended range: a new rocket motor would extend range to 25 to 30 kilometres. Additionally, the IR seeker would be replaced by a radar seeker. The IR seeker can be affected by bad weather, which is especially relevant to the Finnish Navy, as infrared cannot see through clouds, but radar can. These upgrades will surely make the Umkhonto air defence missile more attractive to international clients, Denel believes.

Derived with assistance from the cancelled South African High Velocity missile programme, the Umkhonto surface-to-air missile was originally developed with a 12 km range but this was increased to 15 km and Denel has demonstrated it can reach out to 20 km, with a ceiling of 8 000 metres. It reaches speeds of around Mach 2.5. In 2013 Denel Dynamics for the first time fired the weapon from land – the system was originally developed for naval applications."
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
It's a US BGM-34A from 1983. No idea what its doing in South Africa.

http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/1983.html

83-0514 - 83-0568 Ryan BQM-34A Firebee
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Just a follow up.

The official story is that it was recovered by a Safmarine ship when it was discovered floating in the Caribbean.
It was brought back to South Africa and studied, and then given to the museum.

The other story is that it came from Israel.
 
During an April 3 visit to RDM in Somerset South Africa, Dep Minister of Defence, B Holomisa was giving a tour of said factory. I found this picture rather interesting, as it shows an orange coloured guided weapon that I not seen before. From the size of the carrying lugs on it, it looks like it's 1:1 scale.

The picture just above and behind Holomisa's head clearly states it's a guided weapon. I suspect it's for drone use, being that size.

There is also another interesting weapon's rear peaking out on a table between Holomisa and a RDM employee, just above the 'Orange weapon.. Note too, a model of 'Ploffadder' animated above their heads.

Anyone know any more..?
 

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tyrin said:
UAEAF

Crazy how forward thinking Denel was, Russians didn’t have cheap glide bombs until quite recently.
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AFAIK - Denel was also the first to really simplyfy the intergration issues (time expense and coding), by simply intergrating via Bluetooth and a tablet in the pilot's top thigh pocket (Bluetooth from the cockpit)- allows to intergrate in a few days, what normally takes many months, if not years, and usually costs many millions (sometimes it's more expensive than the whole weapons package itself) - and is also often refused permission or restricted by the aircraft OEM.

This is a far more 'game-changing' and highly innovative development than any of the Al-Tariq/Thunder PGM ranges in my personal opinion..!

I now see that Turkey is copying this development/pratice from Denel..
 
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Graugrun said:
AFAIK - Denel was also the first to really simplyfy the intergration issues (time expense and coding), by simply intergrating via Bluetooth and a tablet in the pilot's top thigh pocket (Bluetooth from the cockpit)- allows to intergrate in a few days, what normally takes many months, if not years, usually costs many millions (sometimes it's more expensive than the whole weapons package itself) - and is often refused permission or restricted by the aircraft OEM.

This is a far more 'game-changing' and highly innovative development than any of the Al-Tariq/Thunder PGM ranges in my personal opinion..!

I now see that Turkey is copying this development/pratice from Denel..
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Correct, that little tablet saved so much time and money on integration.
 

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I was randomly looking through old Kentron archives, and I managed to find an image of the U-Darter being fired from a Mirage F1AZ. I could only find 1 single result from this in reverse search, and it was incorrectly identified as a V3C with the official text cropped out
 

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Surbaissemaxxing said:
I was randomly looking through old Kentron archives, and I managed to find an image of the U-Darter being fired from a Mirage F1AZ. I could only find 1 single result from this in reverse search, and it was incorrectly identified as a V3C with the official text cropped out
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Visually, V3C and U-Darter were basically identical anyway. U-Darter or Upgraded Darter just refined the weapon although it ended more as a building block toward A-Darter and Umkhonto IR.
 

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