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Starstreak II sighted
Monday, 10 September, 2007
Thales Air Defence of Belfast has developed a new version of its well-established Starstreak surface-to-air missile, called Starstreak II. This has a number of enhanced features, including range extended out to 7km, increased altitude and an improved guidance system to enable much smaller targets to be engaged.
Starstreak II is being marketed as a multi-role missile that is not only capable of engaging aerial threats such as low-level unmanned air vehicles, but also attack helicopters and even light armoured vehicles. According to Thales Air Defence, Starstreak II, which is in its final stages of development, can be launched from a variety of air, land and sea platforms. This includes automatic fire control systems such as the Thales Air Defence Multi-Mission System (MMS) or the Lightweight Multiple Launcher currently deployed by South Africa and the UK, which has three Starstreaks in the ready-to-launch position.
The UK calls Starstreak the High Velocity Missile. Like the earlier missile, Starstreak II uses a laser beam guidance system and is claimed to be immune to all known countermeasures. MMS is being shown on a Spanish light cross-country vehicle. Thales Air Defence has completed final design configuration of the MMS, which has just undergone a series of proof-of-principle demonstrations, culminating in the launch of missiles against air and land targets at a range in South Wales — all targets were engaged.
MMS has four Starstreak missiles in the ready-tolaunch position, two either side, with the sensor pod mounted between them, which includes the missile sighting and guidance system and the automatic target tracker. Design of MMS is such that other types of missile can be integrated, including the Spike, Hellfire, Javelin and Ingwe anti-tank guided weapons (ATGWs).It would also be possible to have a mix of missiles, with Starstreak on one side and ATGWs on the other.
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