Thales and Leonardo have announced that their end-to-end missile warning and protection system has proven its effectiveness in live-fire scenarios organised as part of the SALT (Surface-to-Air Launch Trial) hosted by the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) in Sweden.

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) sponsored Leonardo and Thales to take part in the trial, while both companies invested in the integration of the system.

The latest-generation protective system consisted of a Leonardo Miysis Directed Infra-Red Counter-Measure (DIRCM) system and Thales Elix-IR multi-function Threat Warning System (TWS), integrated through Leonardo’s Defensive Aids Suite (DAS) Controller.

Together, the system is designed to offer end-to-end protection from heat-seeking man-portable air-defence missiles (MANPADS) which are widely employed by armed forces and terrorist groups. For SALT, the integrated system was hosted aboard a Terma Universal DIRCM pod.

During the live-fire exercises, when an Infra-Red (IR) missile was fired at a ground target protected by the Leonardo-Thales system, the Elix-IR system detected, tracked, classified and declared the missile as a threat and rapidly passed an alert over to the Miysis system. Miysis then tracked the incoming threat and accurately directed a jamming laser onto the missile’s seeker.

Miysis used a DSTL-developed jamming waveform to confuse the missile’s guidance system, steering the missile away from the target. As well as proving the system’s basic capability, the Leonardo and Thales team demonstrated how they have optimised the threat-warning/threat-defeat chain to thwart incoming missiles as quickly as possible.

Thales and Leonardo say they will continue to market their systems individually, but they will also work closely together to offer the integrated protection capability around the world when it is considered the best solution for customer requirements.