The Polyphem was a proposed light-weight fibre-optic

wire-guided A wire-guided missile is a missile that is guided by signals sent to it via thin wires connected between the missile and its guidance mechanism, which is located somewhere near the launch site. As the missile flies, the wires are reeled out behi ...

surface-to-surface missile A surface-to-surface missile (SSM) or ground-to-ground missile (GGM) is a missile designed to be launched from the ground or the sea and strike targets on land or at sea. They may be fired from hand-held or vehicle mounted devices, from fixed ins ...

with a range of 60 km. It uses a

sealed round A sealed round is a munition which is typically stored in some kind of container (usually a cylinder or box, but the container may in fact be the outside of the munition), so that the munition does not require any sort of maintenance and is stored ...

, a

solid propellant A propellant (or propellent) is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or other motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicles, the e ...

booster rocket A booster rocket (or engine) is either the first stage of a multistage launch vehicle, or else a shorter-burning rocket used in parallel with longer-burning sustainer rockets to augment the space vehicle's takeoff thrust and payload capability ...

to launch the missile out of its canister to an initial height, so that the wings and control surfaces can unfold, and a more fuel economic

turbojet The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, and ...

cruise engine kicks in to propel the missile. The missile can be programmed to follow a preset course, using

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

inertial guidance An inertial navigation system (INS) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity (dire ...

. An

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

seeker can be used to automatically pick a target and for the terminal guidance phase, but it is also possible to transfer the thermal images back to the launching platform via a 200

MBit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

data link provided by an

optical fibre An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...

, and manually select the target. The Polyphem program was started in 1994 by

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. Italy later left the project. A naval version, called Polyphem-S, was initially selected for the

Braunschweig class corvette The K130 ''Braunschweig'' class (sometimes Korvette 130) is Germany's newest Ship class, class of ocean-going corvettes. Five ships have replaced the of the German Navy. In October 2016 it was announced that a second batch of five more corvettes ...

as anti-ship and

land-attack missile A land-attack missile (LAM) is a naval surface-to-surface missile that is capable of effectively attacking targets ashore, unlike specialized anti-ship missiles, which are optimized for striking other ships. Some dual-role missiles are suitable f ...

, but that has been cancelled. The Polyphem program as a whole was cancelled in 2003. ''Polyphem'' is the German Name of

Polyphemus Polyphemus (; grc-gre, Πολύφημος, Polyphēmos, ; la, Polyphēmus ) is the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer's ''Odyssey''. His name means "abounding in songs and lege ...

, the cyclops in the ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by moder ...

'' that got his eye stabbed out by

Ulysses Ulysses is one form of the Roman name for Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature. Ulysses may also refer to: People * Ulysses (given name), including a list of people with this name Places in the United States * Ulysses, Kansas * Ulysse ...

. The system is roughly comparable to the Serbian

ALAS missile ALAS (Advanced Light Attack System, sr, АЛАС) is a Serbian long-range multipurpose wire guided missile system developed by the private company EdePro and the state-owned Yugoimport SDPR. The ALAS missile system was developed primarily for ...

Specifications

*Speed: 120—180 m/ s (around 430—650 km/h) *Range: up to 60 km *Altitude: 20 to 600 m above ground (variable) *Missile mass: around 130 kg *Length: 2.70 m *Warhead: up to 20 kg

Notes

References

POLYPHEM - army-technology.com
{Unreliable source?, reason=domain on WP:BLACKLIST, date=June 2016

Surface-to-surface missiles

Specifications

See also

Notes

References