HUNTSVILLE, Ala. April 30, 2002 -- A U.S. Army and Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) team conducted a successful flight test April 18 of its Brilliant Anti-Armor Submunition (BAT) that included deployment from an Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) carrier missile.
The test was performed at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., by the Army Aviation and Missile Command and Northrop Grumman's Land Combat Systems Huntsville unit. Its objective was to demonstrate the performance of the BAT submunition against a moving array of various armored vehicles equipped with countermeasures. Some of the BATs were fitted with warheads, while others carried flight data recorders to substantiate pretest modeling and simulations.
"A preliminary evaluation indicates that the flight test was highly successful, with all submunitions appearing to operate reliably," said Emmitt Gibson, vice president of Precision Munitions at Northrop Grumman's Electronic Systems sector. Although official scoring is not yet available, it appears that BAT's performance exceeded the Army's operational warfighting requirements.
After they were dispensed from the ATACMS missile, the BATs deployed their aerodynamic surfaces, acoustically acquired the moving targets and maneuvered to the target area. The submunitions recorded hits on all three types of target vehicles ( tanks, armored personnel carriers, and self-propelled howitzers ( despite the presence of countermeasures.
The BAT, currently in low-rate initial production at Northrop Grumman's Land Combat Systems facility in Huntsville, is an autonomous submunition that uses a combination of passive acoustic and infrared sensors to seek, identify and destroy moving armored targets deep in enemy territory. Northrop Grumman is under contract to supply the Army with approximately 1,200 of the submunitions.
Headquartered in Baltimore, Md., Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems is a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of defense electronics systems including airborne radar systems, navigation systems, electronic warfare systems, precision weapons, airspace management systems, air defense systems, communications systems, space systems, marine systems, oceanic and naval systems, logistics systems, and automation and information systems.
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