LEDS-150 which has been selected for T-90.
Saabs Land Electronic Defence System (LEDS) already offers an impressive capability to defend combat vehicles from RPG and ATGM attack, and the family is being further extended to provide protection against smart threats with tri-mode seekers, fire suppression, and the ability to defeat kinetic energy weapons. When fully developed, LEDS will provide full-spectrum, hemispherical protection for a wide range of vehicles.
LEDS uses a building-block approach and, once installed, allows customers to upgrade defensive capabilities incrementally. The baseline system is LEDS-50, comprising four primary LWS-310 multiband laser-warning sensors and an optional LWS-500 top-attack sensor. The five sensor system gives full hemispherical coverage, down to 20° below the sensor horizon, and also has impressive anti-reflection capability to counter false alarms generated by bouncing lasers.
LEDS-50 provides a comprehensive warning and direction-finding capability, and can interface with existing countermeasures systems. As a more capable alternative, the LEDS-100 adds up to four High-Speed Directed Launchers. Each HSDL can slew through 90° in less than 100 milliseconds, bringing to bear countermeasures such as fast-deploying multispectral smoke grenades. Tests with LEDS-100 fitted to a Jordanian M60 MBT began in April.
Scheduled to become operational in 2010, the
LEDS-150 system offers a hard-kill capability against RPGs, ATGMs and tank rounds. Adding an MCTS-150 360° radar/imaging infrared sensor to the system allows LEDS-150 to track incoming rounds, and then fire Mongoose-1 interceptor munitions from HSDL-206 sixtube launchers. Against an RPG fired from 20m, LEDS-150 will destroy it at about 5m from the vehicle, illustrating the rapid reaction of the system.
Mongoose-1 is a shaped-charge munition that is designed to cut into incoming rounds from the side, so that their resulting blast pattern is parallel to the line of flight. Compared with other hard-kill systems that use a metal storm of tungsten balls, this greatly reduces the chances of fratricide against friendly troops who may be close to the vehicle.
During tests in South Africa the Mongoose-1 intercept vehicle demonstrated its ability to detonate incoming rounds in a controlled manner, resulting in a confined blast pattern parallel to the incoming projectiles flightpath
Saab Avitronics is working on the LEDS-200 system, which rapidly deploys a multispectral coating. This provides effective signature management against tri-band (CCD, IR, millimetre-wave radar) threats, and also extinguishes fires. The latter is a very useful feature against attacks from Molotov cocktails. LEDS-300 is a defensive system designed to counter kinetic energy long rod and smart standoff threats. It was tested successfully last year in South Africa, and is scheduled to be ready for operations in 2012.
This October live-fire tests of the LEDS system installed in a Mowag Piranha will be undertaken against a range of threat types. The Swiss manufacturer has chosen LEDS as its preferred active protection system after an exhaustive evaluation of 27 competing solutions. Last month the Piranha V was provisionally chosen for the first phase of the British Armys FRES competition, and LEDS is being offered. The system has already been procured by the Dutch army for its BAE Hägglunds CV90 tracked IFVs, and again is the preferred fit for this widely used family of vehicles. LEDS is shortlisted for the French AMX-10RC upgrade, and is also being considered for the US Army/Marine Corps.
Mongoose-1 missile launcher
Integrated control system and 'MCTS-150' 360° radar/imaging infrared sensor
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