Brilliant Anti-Tank (BAT) - History

History

The BAT submunition was an outgrowth of the Assault Breaker Project. This broad ranging Cold War project’s objective was to develop advanced weapon systems to destroy a Soviet armored assault across the West German border. An early successful weapon system was the Hellfire Missile. The Hellfire was classified as a smart weapon because of the intelligence in the guidance system.

An obvious shortcoming of the Hellfire is that the launch platform must acquire the target and in so doing expose itself. The concept of the BAT was to be able to project the submunitions deep behind enemy lines and autonomously attack high value armored formations before they could engage NATO forces. As originally envisioned, there would have been multiple platforms able to dispense the BAT. These include aircraft dispensers, artillery dispensers and missile dispensers. The intelligence required of the BAT was much greater than the Hellfire and other weapon systems classified as smart, and the term "Brilliant" was applied.

Northrop was the prime contractor for the BAT. Much of the "brilliance" has to do with the submunitions' ability to distinguish high-value targets from low-value targets and strike them in known weak points.

The Assault Breaker Project included systems to detect Soviet armor formations deep behind the front lines. This included the Grumman E-8 Joint STARS (JSTARS).