9M117 Bastion - Description

Description

The 100 mm round resembles a normal 100 mm anti-tank round, and is loaded and fired in the same fashion. The round uses a reduced explosive charge to launch the projectile out of the barrel of the gun at around 400 to 500 m/s. After leaving the barrel of the gun, a small cover falls away from the window on the rear of the missile. The rocket motor ignites 1.5 seconds after firing the missile, and it burns for 6 seconds.

The projectiles use laser guidance. A cone of laser light divided into sectors is projected from the launching tank, each sector having a different frequency or modulation. The missile has a small window in the rear with a sensor to detect the modulation of the light. Using this modulation, the missile steers itself, maintaining its position in the cone. The laser beam-riding guidance system is less spacious than a radio command one, and cheaper and simpler than semi-active laser guidance. The missile is also not prone to radio or optical jamming. On the other hand, a target has to be tracked by laser sight all the time, and the system can not be used on the move.

The missile's flight time to 4,000 meters is approximately 12 seconds. After 26 to 41 seconds the missile self-destructs.

Read more about this topic:  9M117 Bastion

Famous quotes containing the word description:

    To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.
    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

    I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.
    Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)