ANS French/German supersonic antiship missile.

ASSM (anti-surface ship missile) is designed to replace the first generation of antiship missiles such as Exocet and Kormoran.The weapon is required to have a longer range but no greater flight time than present missiles, better penetration of defences (achieved by modulating the motor thrust during the attack phase) and to be autonomous after launching. The programme has grown out of preliminary studies conducted by Aerospatiale and MBB in 1974; each was working on a second generation anti-ship missile, designated MM.100 and Hydra (later FK80) respectively.

In December of that year a prefeasibility study group was set up at the request of the Nato national armaments directors, and the results were presented the following July. Nato then established Project Group 16, comprising members from the six countries listed above together with Italy, having been reduced from 12 countries with some 40 potential contractors. The French and German companies formulated a joint proposal in October 1977 and were joined the following month by Hawker Siddeley Dynamics. The outline proposal for ASSM formulated so far is very similar to the parameters established by sub-group eight of Niag (Nato industrial advisory group). The required range of some 180km dictated the use of some type of ramjet, since an afterburning turbojet does not come into its own below about 200km and since a rocket motor is inefficient beyond some 110km. Themost likely form of propulsion is a solid-propellant ram-rocket, giving a cruise speed of Mach 2-1-2-3. The initial weight targets of 600kg for air launch at Mach 0-75 and 700kg for operations from helicopters, using small boost motors, could not be met; the early studies showed that realistic weights would be 820kg for air launch and 970kg when fired from the surface or submarines, using strap-on boosters.

A dual-mode seeker is seen as being necessary to confer a high hit-probability in the face of diverse countermeasures. Active radar was the obvious choice as the main homing mode, and TV was originally the preferred backup; this would have allowed the target to be positively identified and the desired impact point to be selected, but it would also have required a midcourse data relay for over-the-horizon engagements and could not have met the requirement for autonomy after launching. Infra-red homing has therefore been selected as the back-up mode. Mid-course guidance is likely to use a strap-down inertial system, and the warhead is expected to weigh between 160kg and 200kg.

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JPRS-WER-88-033
30 June 1988


ANS

Since 1981 the supersonic antiship missile system ANS
(anti-navire supersonique) has been a German-French
development project in which industry (Aerospatiale
and MBB) has a substantial share with funds of its own.
The government division of costs was 60 percent for
France and 40 percent for Germany. In mid-1987 the
definition phase was concluded with successful flight
tests, now the start of the development is pending. MBB
subsidiary Bayern-Chemie in competition with Aerospatiale
developed for ANS a controllable solid-propellant
ram-jet engine, but it is still awaiting final qualification,
so that government as well as industry side decided, to
start with, to go with the French liquid ram-jet engine in
the development phase, so that ANS can be operational
in the mid-nineties. The thrust-controlled engine provides
the missile with a preprogrammed flying speed
dependent on the flight profile. Thus ANS—depending
on flight altitude and approach profile—achieves a range
of over 200 km. The fire-and-forget system has an active
target-selecting radar homing head; the ability to penetrate
the enemy defense is said to be assured by the high
flying speed (up to 2.3 Mach), by evasive maneuvers
with high lateral acceleration and high jamming resistance.

ANS is designed as a ship-to-ship, surface-to-ship, and
air-to-ship version and the Navy—it hesitated for a long
time to continue supporting ANS—has primarily a need
for the ship-to-ship version to replace the Exocet. Later
on the Harpoons and Kormorans will probably be
replaced by it.

In the ship-to-ship version the start takes place from the
pod with two booster motors jettisonable after the burn,
in the air-to-ship version the booster engine can be
omitted for fast aircraft; with slower carrier aircraft two
small booster engines are required.

Also possible appears to be a smaller helicopter-based
version, ANL, for which possibly the solid-propellant
ramjet engine could be chosen.

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An agreement to jointly develop a future anti-ship missile was signed by France, the UK, the Netherlands, Norway and Germany in 1977. The tactical and technical requirements stated that the range of the future missile would be 180 km at a cruising speed of Mach 2. But within months, for political and financial reasons, the parties to the agreement began to refuse to pursue the project, so that by the mid-1980s, research and development of the missile was not undertaken by French and West German specialists. The French Navy reserved the designation MM-100 for the missile. The work was financed equally by four participants.

Despite the successful launch of the ANS DAS (Direct Flow Airjet Propulsion) demonstrator at the French test site in 1989, the French government withdrew further funding for the project in 1992. As a result, the project’s prime contractor, Aérospatiale, stopped developing the missile without giving up on creating long-range supersonic SIRBMs.

As a priority option for the implementation of these plans, the direction of the in-depth modernization of the ASMP missile, created by Aérospatiale to equip the strategic forces of the French Air Force, was chosen. The revised version was originally named ASMP-C (Conventional, as it was non-nuclear). After the French government took over funding, the project was given the designation ANF (Anti-Navire Future, ‘Anti-Ship Missile of the Future’).

In October 1994, Aérospatiale and Deutsche Aerospace formed a consortium for the joint development of a supersonic missile based on the Aérospatiale ANF. Within the consortium the missile was renamed ANNG (Anti-Navire Nouvelle Génération, « New Generation Anti-Ship Missile »). In 1995, the name of the project was changed again to ASURA. Within the consortium, Aérospatiale was responsible for the development of the missile’s glider and engine, as well as the terminal guidance system. The West German company, a subcontractor of Deutsche Aerospace, is to develop the warhead and the navigation system.

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