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2021-03-01

SmartGlider: The Answer to Destroying Best-defended Targets

Recently, a long-term partnership between Tawazun and MBDA was signed, enabling the development of the SmartGlider weapon systems from design to production phase.

A joint team of engineers from both sides, the majority from Tawazun, will be in charge of development studies. They will be operating from MBDA’s first regional Missile Engineering Centre established in the UAE.

Matar Ali Romaithi, Chief Officer of the Economic Development Unit at Tawazun, said: “This agreement allows us to extend and increase our areas of co-development and co-production of technologically advanced defence products.”

During the pre-development phase, the two entities will study several concepts before reaching a development phase. The intention being to offer an optimal system at the right price and with the right performance, leveraging the capabilities of the UAE defence industry.

MBDA’s new SmartGlider family of guided weapons is optimised to counter anti-access strategies and other emerging battlespace threats. Designed to complement new and future fast jets, SmartGlider forms a family of all-up-round glider weapons, with folding wings and a range of over 100 km allowing the combat platform to stay at safe distance from the enemy defences. This new generation of air-to-ground weapons is designed to counter new networked short- and medium-range surface-to-air threats, as well as moving/relocatable targets or hardened fixed targets.

Florent Duleux, MBDA Vice-President Middle East, said: “The region’s air forces are equipped with the latest generation of combat aircraft, particularly European combat aircraft, and Smart Glider allows the full exploitation of the sensors and systems that equip these modern aircraft – to deliver military effects that could not even be considered before.”

Robust Variants

The compact family member, SmartGlider Light, is 2 metres long and weighs 120 kg. 12 to 18 SmartGlider Lights can be carried on an aircraft thanks to a Hexabomb Smart Launcher (HSL) capable of managing reactive strikes without affecting the pilot’s workload. As such, the SmartGlider Light will allow first-day-entry by saturating and destroying enemy air defences.

For general purpose missions, the SmartGlider Light can be engaged against a wide spectrum of targets, from hardened and defended fixed targets such as hangars, to relocatable targets that can only be destroyed from a standoff distance with significant lethal effects.

MBDA also prepares a 1,300 kg SmartGlider Heavy to be able to carry a multipurpose warhead of more than 1,000 kg to deal with large and hardened infrastructure.

SmartGliders will integrate new technologies in their guidance and navigation functions, as well as multi-purpose warheads. Thus, they will be able to reach and destroy the best defended targets, notably enemy air defences, thanks to a mix of optronics and radio frequency sensors that makes them robust against anti-access measures.

“The SmartGlider family considerably reinforces the air-to-ground capabilities of the combat platform, sitting between bombs equipped with guidance kits and cruise missiles”, explains François Moussez, MBDA Military Advisor. “Designed for use in high volumes, SmartGliders Light can be fired in groups behaving as wolf packs that will coordinate in order to saturate enemy air defences.”

With a significant presence in five European countries and within the U.S., in 2016 MBDA achieved a turnover of €3.0 billion with an order book of €15.9 billion. With more than 90 armed forces customers in the world, MBDA is a world leader in missiles and missile systems.

The company is the only European group capable of designing and producing missiles and missile systems that correspond to the full range of current and future operational needs of the three armed forces (land, sea and air). In total, the group offers a range of 45 missile systems and countermeasures products already in operational service and more than 15 others currently in development. MBDA is owned jointly by Airbus (37.5 per cent), BAE Systems (37.5 per cent), and Leonardo (25 per cent).

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