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PAAMS(S) fired up
Tuesday, 11 September, 2007
MBDA is completing final preparations aboard the guided weapons trials barge Longbow ahead of a campaign of test firings for the UK Royal Navy’s nextgeneration Principal Anti-Air Missile System (Sampson) — PAAMS(S) — air defence weapon system. PAAMS(S) will equip the RN’s six new Type 45 air defence destroyers, the first of which, Daring, completed initial sea trials in August.
Designed to provide local and fleet area defence to ships in consort, and selfdefence for the Type 45 itself, PAAMS(S) shares many common subsystems with the Franco-Italian PAAMS(E), including the Aster 15 and Aster 30 active homing missiles and the SYLVER A50 vertical launcher module. However, the PAAMS(S) variant specific to the RN differs in that it features the BAE Systems Insyte Sampson E/F-band multifunction radar (rather than the EMPAR radar used in the PAAMS(E) system) and a UK command and control subsystem.
Longbow will be towed from Portsmouth Naval Base to the Mediterranean this autumn. On arrival, final preparations will be made to the barge and the PAAMS(S) system in readiness for a firing campaign starting in early 2008 at the Centre d’Essais de Lancement des Missiles test range. MBDA UK managing director Steve Wadey said: “We are approaching the PAAMS(S) firing campaign with maximum confidence. A great deal of progress has already been made with all the system elements of PAAMS. Test firings have taken place with PAAMS using the EMPAR radar and these of course have provided invaluable information to support the PAAMS(S) integration. “In addition, all the de-risking that has been taking place at the PAAMS Integration Facility at our Bristol site and other test facilities means we are now able to move rapidly forward.”
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