FRENCH COMPLEX “POLYNEGE”
С2002, a French company Nexter (formerly Giat Industries), under a contract with the General Directorate for Armament of France (Defense Procurements Agency - DGA), is developing a Tank-guided missile “Polynege” of caliber 120-mm, capable of being fired from the gun of the main Leclerc combat tank. The Polynege is designed in accordance with the requirements for improving the performance of the Leclerc tank in terms of firing opportunities beyond the line of sight. The target will be determined either by the crew of the vehicle, or transmitted from ground reconnaissance vehicles, or from UAVs, helicopters, and airplanes.
Projectile “Polynege” is made by the aerodynamic configuration “duck”. Four rudders are located in the front, and in the tail are six large tail consoles for stabilization and planning. At the head of the projectile is a combined IR-laser hose. It is followed by the steering compartment. In the central part of the projectile is supposed to place the warhead, which forms when undermining a compact striking element - “shock core”, with the warhead axis perpendicular to the rocket axis. Alternatively, conventional cumulative warheads are also considered. At the moment, the projectile layout does not include a rocket engine, but with minor design changes it can be placed in the tail section.
The shell has a mass of 20 kg and is placed in a combustible, with the exception of the igniter and the bottom of the sleeve. Weight shot 28 kg, length 984 mm. The projectile has a fairly large initial speed of 600 — 800 m / s, which provides it with a maximum range of 8 km.
There are two possible attack modes for armored targets - the direct attack mode and the off-line attack mode. In the first case, when firing at an open visible target, the projectile flies along a flat trajectory, and the guidance is carried out using an IR-GOS or a reflected laser beam using a semi-active laser seeker.
In the second case, when firing at closed positions at long ranges, the tracking system will be controlled by a satellite GPS system or an inertial guidance system, and in the final leg of the flight, guidance will also be carried out either by means of IR-GOS or by semi-active laser GOS.
The maximum launching distance in 8 km is as follows: the first 3,5 km flight goes up to 650 m, then planning to 7,5 km range to 500 m and then follows a dive and a target hit from above. In this case, it would be advisable to use a conventional tandem cumulative warhead.
Since the projectile is under development and demonstration tests, the data and guidance modes described above are not final. The presented characteristics (tabl.xnumx and tabl.xnumx) are the goals that are to be achieved rather than the results achieved.
Two variants of the attack projectile “Polynege”
