BELFAST ---- Shorts Missile Systems Ltd (SMS), the Belfast based specialist in the design and manugfacture of Very Short Range AIr Defence (VSHORAD) system today announced 100% success in a recent series of firings of the Starstreak system against both aerial and ground targets.
This is the first time the system has been fired in front of prospective international customers and also a first for demonstrating its capability against ground targets. These impressive results follow on from the success already achieved in the US with the Air-to-Air Starstreak firings from the Apache attack helicopter.
Officially launched on the export market in september 1998, the Starstreak system incorporates the latest in automatic target tracking (ATT), with a second generation thermal sighting system and the state-of-the-art, Starstreak high velocity missile. The system was developed from the Self Propelled Starstreak system, already successfully in service with the British Army anbd recently deployed in the Balkans during the Kosovo crisis.
SMS also announced that it has signed a Collaborative Agreement with British Aerospace System and Equipment Ltd (BASE) of Plymouth for the design, and development of the integrated ATT system for the Starstreak Armoured and Lightweight vehicle systems. The BASE system was chosen after a comprehensive competitive evaluaion incorporating complex and challenging scenarios for each of the contenders.
The BASE system offers the latest generation in ATT capability and provides the operator with a truly fire and forget system but with the combined advantage of Starstreak's laser guidance and its immunity to all known countermeasures. The provision of precision automatic target tracking enhances the target engagement capabilities of the Starstreak system and reduces operator training by a significant margin.
Much interest has already been shown in the Startreak systems, and representatives from a total of nine countries have now witnessed the systems' impressive capabilities. The SMS demonstration of starstreak consisted of a comprehensive disp-lay of target engagement capability and missile firepower. This included long range alerting, automatic cueing and followed by "hands off" target engagement using the Starstreak ATT, as well as firings carried out against a simulated low level head-on attack helicopter and an armoured personnel carrier.
The ground based Starstreak systems are modular in design, and can be integrated into a variety of either armoured or lightweight platforms.
Speaking form the Ministry of Defence's Firing Range, Dr Allister McQuoid, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at SMS said, "We are delighted with the results which we have achieved to date with this product. The capabilities of the Starstreak range of products, which includes both the Armoured and Lightweight systems, have allowed SMS to differentiate ourselves from the rest of our competitors in the market-place. No other missile has demonstrated such versatility against fast-moving, agile air targets as well as heavily armoured ground targets. We now look forward to converting much of the interest shown in these systems into orders."
Shorts Missile Systems is a world leader in the design and manufacture of close air defence systems, and its products have found great success in service with 56 armed forces around the world. The company is the UK's prime contractor in Very Short Range Air defence Systems and employs over 500 people based in Belfast and Paris. SMS is a joint venture company between Shorts Brothers plc, a subsidiary of Bombardier Inc. and Thomson-CSF, the defence electronics corporation.
BASE is a European leaser in high technology and defence engineering. In addition to its electro-optical business, BASE specialises in navigation, radomes and motion sensing.
