Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1407425
fire control system may also be locked onto. One may also precisely hit the proper area of the target - top of the turret, engine compartment, or even commander's/driver's hatch. Spike is also capable of acting against targets protected by soft-kill protection systems, thanks to the human in the loop. To some extent, Spike may also overcome hard-kill protection systems, thanks to the option of selecting a specific flight and engagement trajectories. The flexibility of guidance certainty is higher for the Spike ATGM, in comparison to other ATGMs. Due to the specifics of the national battlespace, the target ID capacity is also an important matter. In the case of the Spike ATGM the initial, erroneous target identification still does not rid the operator of the ability to miss the vehicle on purpose. The above feature diminishes the risk of blue-on-blue scenarios. Summing up, no better choice was available in the anti-tank domain. The ability to destroy targets at a distance of 4 kilometers (instead of 0.8-1.5 kilometers) means that, with a proper intel-gathering advantage, the crew of a platform sporting the ZSSW-30 turret has a very effective, serious range, anti- tank weapon at its disposal. The fire control system has been developed by the WB Group. It is the most costly of the turret's components. The development of this solution was time-consuming. It is very difficult to assess the fire control system diligently. First, the WB Group cannot disclose any specific performance figures. Second, assessment of the fire control system per se is very challenging in the case of modern fighting vehicles. The effectiveness of the fire control system depends on numerous factors - that are not obvious at first. Any marketing brochure of the foreign solution is usually very optimistic, when placed against real-world use, for instance during military exercises in Poland. The fire control systems also suffer from numerous accuracy limitations, especially when engaging moving targets, or targets on the move. The limitations usually come up not during the "demo days", but rather during the thorough training range tests. This is where the armament shall be put through its paces. Three sights act as the primary sensors of the system. The panoramic commander's sight, the primary sight, and the reserve sight - not integrated with the fire control system and utilized in extraordinary circumstances. The panoramic GOD-1 IRIS commander's sight is being manufactured at PCO S.A.. WB Electronics' engineering team was involved in the development of this system. The system's purpose is to be operated in detection, observation, tracking, and targeting applications, against ground-based and airborne targets, in the variable day and night lighting conditions. The system consists of an integrated optoelectronic module placed on a carrier platform that is stabilized in two axes. The system features a mono-impulse laser rangefinder, a set of TV cameras, with a light meter sensor, and a cooled thermal imaging system (8-12 μm range). The system is capable of covering a 360-degree sphere, with the elevation ranging from -20 to +60 degrees. A limit has been implemented, when it comes to the sensor's movement speed - up to 1.0 rad. per second - 57 degrees per second. The stabilizer's accuracy figure is confidential. We know that it remains below 200 µrad (1ơ). The CCD daytime camera www.fragoutmag.com