Armor: April 24, 2001

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Sweden's Strix precision-guided 120mm anti-tank mortar shell never found much of a market, being sold only to the Swedish Army and to Switzerland. The shell is fired from a standard mortar to a range of 7,000m. The nose-mounted passive infrared seeker can recognize armored vehicles and is smart enough to ignore many kinds of decoys. With production complete and the Swedish and Swiss stockpiles filled, Bofors is seeking new markets. To reach them, it must do two things. First, it must show that the Strix can be fired from modern vehicle-mounted automatic mortars. (Tests are under way.) Second, it must produce a new version of Strix with advanced features. Developments under study include GPS targeting, electro-optical target identification, the ability to have the trajectory adjusted while in mid-flight, an autonomous mode that can detect targets farther away (allowing it to be used against enemy forces not precisely located), and a multipurpose warhead that could defeat several types of targets (tanks, infantry, bunkers).--Stephen V Cole