MBDA ERYX

History

With the continued popularity of armoured fighting vehicles on the modern battlefield, it is the responsibility of the world powers to stay one step ahead in the development of armour-piercing solutions. This was the case with the French Army, which introduced a short-range portable/vehicle-mounted anti-tank missile (ATGM) system.

Introduced in 1994, this tripod-based weapon still exists in the inventory of the French army (and elsewhere).

ERYX worked on design from the early 1980s to the early 1990s and was subsequently produced under the MBDA brand label. The system was developed as a successor to the aging LRAC F1 series of reusable shoulder-fired systems, which fire 89mm rockets. The ERYX was designed with a larger 137mm rocket loaded with a tandem HEAT (High Explosive, Anti-Tank) warhead with up to 900mm of Rolling Homogeneous Armor (RHA) penetration. The missile's detonating component is located at the rear of the missile's fuselage, which gives it the proper detonation distance from the impacting nose cone, especially when dealing with explosive reactive armor (ERA) blocks.

The missile has also been given a "dual role" battlefield capability, allowing it to be used as a "bunker breaker" against concrete fortifications and destroy walls up to 2.5 meters thick.

The ERYX missile has a range of up to 600 meters and is limited by the wire-guided design, which requires the operator to guide the missile to the target over the entire flight range of the missile (by line of sight only). ). Dubbed "SACLOS" -- semi-automatic command of sight -- this arrangement eliminates the cost and complexity of designing self-guided missiles favored by other militaries.

Although well into 1994, it did not come into use until the United Nations committed to rebuilding Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban government. The French armed forces have deployed their ERYX units to counter the continued involvement of Islamic extremists in Mali.

Currently (2015) ERYX is active in inventories in Brazil, Canada, France, Malaysia, Norway and Turkey. The Canadian example is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2016.

Manufactured by MKEK in Turkey (under license), this product is used to replace aging rocket launcher stocks, including the Soviet-era RPG-7 series.

At the end of 2009, an enhanced version - simply called "Enhanced ERYX" - was presented to potential exporters.

Specification

Roles

Dimensions

Performance

Changes