IDAS notches up first submarine firing

An Interactive Defence and Attack system for Submarines (IDAS) missile has been successfully launched from the German Navy's Type 212A submarine U 33.

The submarine firing follows underwater test launches from facilities on the Baltic and North Sea run by the WTD 71 Technical Centre for Ships and Naval Weapons in the second half of 2006.

The test firing took place in the Baltic on 29 May 2008 and provided evidence that the underwater launch sequence, so far tested only from shallow basins, can be replicated from a submerged submarine. However, another important objective was validating the performance of the fibre-optic datalink.

The link provides a bi-directional data stream and allows the operator to view the seeker image from an existing multifunction console in the submarine's combat information centre and observe the mission or record it for verification and analysis purposes.

However, the system also provides the operator with the ability to manually override the controls and steer the missile onto the target, or abort the mission.

Speaking to Jane's, representatives at Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) and Diehl Defence BGT confirmed that the link worked as expected, although images taken from the missile's seeker head were not yet available at the time of going to press. 207 of 782 words