Taurus KEPD 350 is a Swedish-German

air-launched cruise missile An air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) is a cruise missile that is launched from a military aircraft. Current versions are typically standoff weapons which are used to attack predetermined land targets with conventional, nuclear or thermonuclear ...

, manufactured by Taurus Systems and used by Germany, Spain, and South Korea. Taurus Systems GmbH is a partnership between MBDA Deutschland GmbH (formerly LFK) and Saab Bofors Dynamics.

Overview

The

missile In military terminology, a missile is a guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously unguided rocket ...

incorporates

stealth technology Stealth technology, also termed low observable technology (LO technology), is a sub-discipline of military tactics and passive and active electronic countermeasures, which covers a range of methods used to make personnel, aircraft, ships, su ...

and has an official range in excess of . Taurus is powered by a turbofan engine at Mach 0.95 and can be carried by

Tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, alt ...

Eurofighter Typhoon The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air-superiority fighter and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo ...

Gripen The Saab JAS 39 Gripen (; English: ''griffin'') is a light single-engine multirole fighter aircraft manufactured by the Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab AB. The Gripen has a delta wing and canard configuration with relaxed stabilit ...

F/A-18 The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twin-engine, supersonic, carrier-capable, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a fighter and attack aircraft (hence the F/A designation). Designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part ...

, and F-15K jets. The double

warhead A warhead is the forward section of a device that contains the explosive agent or toxic (biological, chemical, or nuclear) material that is delivered by a missile, rocket, torpedo, or bomb. Classification Types of warheads include: * Expl ...

, called Mephisto (Multi-Effect Penetrator HIghly Sophisticated and Target Optimised), features a precharge and initial penetrating charge to clear soil or enter HDBT (Hard and Deeply Buried Targets) hardened underground

bunker A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. T ...

, then a variable delay

fuze In military munitions, a fuze (sometimes fuse) is the part of the device that initiates function. In some applications, such as torpedoes, a fuze may be identified by function as the exploder. The relative complexity of even the earliest fuze ...

to control

detonation Detonation () is a type of combustion involving a supersonic exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front propagating directly in front of it. Detonations propagate supersonically through shock waves with s ...

of the main warhead. The missile weighs about and has a maximum body diameter of . Intended targets are hardened bunkers; command, control, and communications facilities;

airfield An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...

and port facilities; AMS and

ammunition Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other we ...

storage; ships in port or at sea; area target attack and bridges. The missile also includes counter measures as a self-defence mechanism and electronic counter measures. Mission planners program the missile with the target, air defence locations and planned ground path, then the missile uses a low terrain-hugging flight path guided by

INS INS or Ins or ''variant'', may refer to: Places * Ins, Switzerland, a municipality * Creech Air Force Base (IATA airport code INS) * Indonesia, ITF and UNDP code INS Biology *'' Ins'', a New World genus of bee flies * INS, the gene for the insulin ...

, IBN, TRN, and GPS to the proximity of the target, although it is capable of navigating over very long distances without GPS support. Once there the missile commences a bunt (climb) manoeuvre to an altitude intended to achieve the best probability of target acquisition and penetration. During the cruise flight a high resolution thermographic camera (

infrared homing Infrared homing is a passive weapon guidance system which uses the infrared (IR) light emission from a target to track and follow it seamlessly. Missiles which use infrared seeking are often referred to as "heat-seekers" since infrared is rad ...

) can support the navigation by using IBN and is also used for GPS-free target attack. The missile attempts to match a camera image with the planned 3D target model (

DSMAC Terrain contour matching, or TERCOM, is a navigation system used primarily by cruise missiles. It uses a pre-recorded contour map of the terrain that is compared with measurements made during flight by an on-board radar altimeter. A TERCOM syste ...

). If it cannot, it defaults to the other navigation systems, or, if there is a high risk of

collateral damage Collateral damage is any death, injury, or other damage inflicted that is an incidental result of an activity. Originally coined by military operations, it is now also used in non-military contexts. Since the development of precision guided ...

, it will steer to a pre-designated crash point instead of risking an inaccurate attack with undesired consequences. Taurus Systems GmbH has also proposed an anti-ship variant.Hoyle, Craig
"Germany receives last Taurus cruise missile"
''Flight global'', December 14, 2010. Retrieved December 14, 2010.

Export

Spain's military bought 45 missiles. The integration of the Taurus in the Spanish Air Force service line has been certified by the successful completion of a dedicated test campaign in South Africa, carried out in May 2009. South Korea planned to order 200 missiles to integrate with their F-15K Slam Eagles after being refused

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

's AGM-158 JASSM by Washington. The

Defense Acquisition Program Administration The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) was founded on January 1, 2006 as part of a comprehensive reform of the defense acquisition project, including the introduction and development of weapons, and is a central administrative agenc ...

(DAPA) signed the deal in November 2013. Taurus Systems will open an office in Seoul to handle various acquisition tasks and support technology-transfer and joint development of the next cruise missile. The office was the company's first outside of Germany, and the KEPD 350 is the first European missile to be integrated onto a South Korean fighter aircraft. In October 2016, South Korea announced it would acquire a further 90 Taurus missiles, in addition to the 170 previously ordered, in response to North Korean nuclear and missile provocations. On 12 December 2016, the first 40 Taurus KEPD 350K missiles were delivered to the ROKAF, which began deployment for combat use on 22 December 2016.

Variants

The Taurus KEPD 350K variant for the ROKAF differs from the baseline model by being equipped with a

Rockwell Collins Rockwell Collins was a multinational corporation headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, providing avionics and information technology systems and services to government agencies and aircraft manufacturers. It was formed when the Collins Radio Co ...

GPS receiver with a Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module (SAASM) to prevent jamming. In October 2015, Taurus Systems revealed it was developing a smaller version of the Taurus missile, called the 350K-2, for use on light fighters, particularly the South Korean FA-50. Range would be reduced to and it would have a cruise speed of Mach 0.6–0.9. In December 2016, South Korea's

(DAPA) revealed it plans to start development on its own indigenous long-range air-to-ground missile in 2018, based on the Taurus cruise missile. The weapon will be mounted on the

KAI KF-21 Boramae The KAI KF-21 ''Boramae'' (formerly known as KF-X) is a South Korean lead fighter aircraft development program with the goal of producing an advanced multirole fighter for the South Korean and Indonesian air forces. The airframe is stealthi ...

fighter, to be developed by the mid-2020s.

Operators

Current operators

; : 600 ordered for the

German Air Force The German Air Force (german: Luftwaffe, lit=air weapon or air arm, ) is the aerial warfare branch of the , the armed forces of Germany. The German Air Force (as part of the ''Bundeswehr'') was founded in 1956 during the era of the Cold War as ...

Panavia Tornado The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multirole combat aircraft, jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom and West Germany. There are three primary Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS (inte ...

s at a cost of €570 million. Deliveries ended in December 2010. ; : 43 ordered for the

Spanish Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = Spanish Air and Space Force Anthem , mascot = , anniversaries = 10 December , equipment ...

s. Deliveries ended in August 2010. The program cost €60m. ; : 170 in service with 90 ordered, for use on the

Republic of Korea Air Force The Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF; ko, 대한민국 공군; RR: ''Daehanminguk Gong-gun''), also known as the ROK Air Force or South Korean Air Force, is the aerial warfare service branch of South Korea, operating under the Ministry of N ...

's F-15K fighter jets.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Taurus Kepd 350 Cruise missiles Cruise missiles of Germany Post–Cold War weapons of Germany Cruise missiles of Sweden Military equipment introduced in the 2000s