- Yes
- No
Champions of close quarters combat
At ILA 2010, Rheinmetall Defence and MBDA took the attention of air defence eyes when they presented the new LFK-NG Multi-purpose guided missile. Flaunting new features that would prove essential for any modern military looking to provide itself with capable short ranged air defence from anything as small as rockets to highly manoeuvrable fighter aircraft.
Aiming to close the capability gap between the Roland, Stinger and Gepard Air defence systems, the LFK-NG boasted an impressive 10km intercept range up to a 6km altitude.
The LFK-NG was part of SysFla (System Flugabwehr) and was designed to supplement the MANTIS gun-based air defence system from Rheinmetall.
It was able to be launched both from the air, horizontally mounted on the Eurocopter Tiger and from the ground, vertically mounted in launch cells on the GTK Boxer vehicle chassis and a launcher system of up to 4 missiles on the Ozelot chassis.
In-game it will mostly perform like the ADATS missile with but with a fire and forget nature. Because it features both a proximity-fuse fragmentation and contact-fuse high-explosive penetrator warhead. Thus the locking mechanism and animation will be the same as for the Pars, Spike etc.
Testing
The missile was tested in Meppen, Germany as well as by Bayern-Chemie and yielded a satisfactory 10km range and high manoeuvrability owning to the IRIS-T derived body.
Also tested through launch tubes similarly to HOT, TOW and Roland missile tubes.
Technical Specifications
Missile calibre: 110mm
Launch weight: 28Kg
Missile weight: 19kg
Missile length: 1780mm
Missile acceleration: Unknown for now
Missile Thrust: Unknown for now (double pulse motor)
Maximum speed: 2.5 Mach
Maximum overload: 60G
Warhead weight: 2.5kg (dual mode: Proximity-Fragmentation and Contact-High-Explosive Penetrator)
Warhead penetration: 560mm (contact detonation mode)
Maximum range: 10km
Similar seeker as IRIS-T except it has a cooled matrix of 256x256 elements and slightly limited HOBS capability as compared to the indium-antimonide two colour 128x2 elements linear array and ±90° of HOBS of the IRIS-T.
The missile itself is a variant of the IRIS-T hence why the similarity.
It also shares the IOG and Datalink features from the IRIS-T.
In function however it would be a better stinger seeker.
Extra info here
BGT’s Stefan Eckert says the missile will weigh 19kg (42lb), have an 8km (5 miles)-plus range and a maximum Mach 2.5 velocity.
LeFla resembles a scaled-down IRIS-T - being 1.8m (5.9ft)-long with a 90mm diameter. The MSK one-colour, imaging infrared seeker has a 70mm diameter uses a two dimensional matrix similar to IRIS-T, says Eckert. The scan field-of-view, is however, slightly less than the ±90° of IRIS-T, he adds.
Using the IRIS-T configuration gives the missile high manoeuvrability, says Eckert, while a datalink allows target position updates to be passed to the missile when used in the NLOS mode.
As with the larger weapon, aerodynamic fins and thrust vectoring control are used to manoeuvre the missile. Eckert says the TVC allows the missile to be used from vertical launchers. Bayen Chemie will supply the dual pulse motor.
From Flight International, 2000.
Stefan Eckert is the COO of Diehl BGT.
The Dual-Pulse motor was an innovative design feature intended to increase range and intercept speed.
Sources
- Ukrainian journal about LFK NG
- LFK NG - Wikipedia
- LFK NG missile for air defence, military systems - MBDA Systems
- SysFla / LFK NG – the air defence system of the future | Press Release | MBDA
- Diehl BGT Defence | Surface-to-air guided missiles
- Ozelot with LFK NG - General & Upcoming - War Thunder - Official Forum
- LFK NG | Military Wiki | Fandom
- Overview — LFK-NG VSHORAD missile — Anti-Air — Missiles/Rockets/Bombs — Weapons — Military Periscope
- About: LFK NG
- https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2006-4765
- https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2006-4762
- BGT modifies its short-range air defence missile | News | Flight Global
- https://www.armements.net/lfkng.htm
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268474805_The_Safety_and_Delay_Device_for_the_LFK-NG_Double-Pulse_Motor_Demonstrator
- https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/epdf/10.2514/6.2006-4763
- x.com
Test firings - https://aviationweek.com/germany-starts-flight-testing-next-generation-air-defense-missile
