State arsenal subsidiary Denel Dynamics this week show-cased its concept Fire Support for Infantry Missile (FSIM) at the Armour Symposium 201 in Pretoria.
The missile, shown in mock up, was described as a “new low-cost weapon for the infantry, air assault, parachute and Special Forces units; essentially an RPG and FT5 replacement with a loiter/NLOS [non line-of-sight, i.e. indirect] capability for urban/jungle/ambush situations.”
The small weapon will have a mass lighter than 4kg including a 1kg warhead consistent of a 100mm shaped charge with anti-personnel fragmentation effective to a 5m radius.
The weapon would have an average airspeed of 100m/s, a minimum range of 20m and a maximum of 10 000m. Loiter time would be up to 10 minutes.
Guidance in the direct mode is to be as follows:
– 20-30m: Unguided “fire and forget” (F&F), snatch and shoot
– 20-100m: Rate aided [sic] F&F (Predator)
– 20-500m: Lock-on before launch (LOBL) with TV/imaging infrared (IIR) F&F
Guidance in the indirect mode requires a man-in-the-loop lock-on after launch (LOAL), again with TV and IIR as well as a video and data link.
The South African Army has a long-standing requirement, formulated under Project Tladi, for a new generation portable infantry anti-tank rocket launcher to replace the RPG7 and the FT5.
Also on display was a stealth “future Ingwe concept” upgrade of the existing missile. This was advertised as having a range of 6km (one more than the existing system and with a shorter time of flight), a calibre of 150mm (versus 127mm at present), a length of 1400mm and a multi-purpose direct and top-attack warhead weighing between six and eight kilogrammes. The overall weight of the concept was some 22kg.
Pic: A FSIM in the foreground,with a “stealth Ingwe” in the middle and a standard Ingwe at the rear.