Rafael unveils the Spike ER2
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has revealed its Spike ER2 Fifth Generation Extended Range missile, “to enable Joint 5th generation tactical overmatch for ground manoeuvere, rotary dominance and naval deterrence.” The new missile features a number of new capabilities, and a combination of greater standoff range of up to 10 km for surface launch, and 16 km when fired from a helicopter, NLOS engagement capabilities (launch to grid coordinate), “while retaining the Spike legacy of relatively light weight (less than 34kg) and high lethality.” These constitute significant factors for precision-guided missiles.
The Spike ER2 has evolved from the wider Spike Missile family, which is “one of the ‘most combat-proven missiles’”, integrated on more than 45 platforms, in use by 30 nations, with over 30,000 missiles already supplied and 5000 missiles fired. The Spike ER (Extended Range) variant, now upgraded to Spike ER2, is the mid-range member of the family, with a range of 8 km, and has a vast platform portfolio, including on the Spanish Army Aviation Tiger helicopter, the Colombian Air Force Blackhawk, the Italian AW129 Mangusta, the Romanian Super Puma
helicopter, the Super Cobra, and various types of ground vehicles and naval vessels.
The missile includes a new RF datalink variant to maximise the missile’s energetic range for enhanced stand-off launch from rotary platforms, having a 16 km range. It also integrity a modern advanced seeker with high resolution IR and day sensors for extended range target acquisition, and a multispectral target tracker, enabling sensory data fusion - an important feature in the smoky environment of today’s battlefields. The missile also has a special maritime target tracker which can sustain target lock-on in the maritime environment. The Spike ER2 seeker was designed for the modern battle arena enabling ‘hotswap’ capabilities of sensory swap between IR to day midflight (important for detection of camouflaged targets). In addition, it has network connectivity and Non-Line-OfSight ( NLOS) engagement capabilities, including an embedded IMU ( Inertial Measurement Unit) for third party target allocation, allowing firing of the missile on NLOS grid target coordinates.