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Navy Plans To Adapt Spike Missile To Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
By Marc Selinger
A low-cost, shoulder-launched missile the U.S. Navy Department is
developing for the Marine Corps and special operations forces
eventually will be adapted for use on unmanned aerial vehicles,
according to program representatives.
The Naval Air Warfare Center's Weapons Division is developing the
Spike missile and launcher system initially for use by people on
the ground. The system is envisioned as a safer, more accurate
alternative to rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) and as a relatively
inexpensive complement to the man-portable Javelin anti-tank
missile.
While RPGs are unguided and have a range of only a few hundred
yards, Spike will be guided with a laser designator or
electro-optical imaging and have a range of about two miles.
A Javelin missile costs about $75,000. By comparison, a Spike
missile is expected to cost only about $4,000. While the Javelin
launcher costs about $125,000, the Spike launcher will have an
estimated price tag of just $6,000.
Spike is designed to destroy unarmored or lightly armored vehicles,
mobile anti-aircraft systems and slow-moving helicopters. It also
will have urban warfare applications because the missile will be
able to go through a window before exploding.
Although Javelin is capable of destroying such soft targets, it
makes more sense to use a lower-cost missile for that purpose and
save Javelin for heavily armored targets, according to Spike
program representatives, who displayed their system at a recent
technology demonstration on Capitol Hill.
"You don't really want to shoot $75,000 missiles at Jeeps," said
Steven Felix, the Navy Department's project manager for
Spike.
The Spike system is supposed to be small and light - three missiles
and a launcher could fit in a standard military backpack.
Spike is expected to move into the system development and
demonstration (SDD) phase near the end of calendar 2003 and enter
production within about two or three years.
Besides aiding forces on the ground, Spike also could serve as a
low-cost complement to the Hellfire air-to-ground, anti-tank
missile, another relatively expensive weapon that has been
successfully fired in combat from Predator UAVs, program
representatives said.
John Baylouny, vice president of DRS Technologies, which has been
helping the Navy develop Spike, said the Spike missile could be
used on almost any UAV and that "future spirals" in the program are
expected to involve putting Spike on unmanned aircraft.