EVADER offers training capability against anti-ship missiles

Victoria-based Grollo Aerospace has developed a low-cost supersonic training missile called EVADER, to help Royal Australian Navy (RAN) personnel practice against a high-speed target.

EVADER is 4.2m long and weighs about 90kg. It features a supersonic ramjet engine in a rugged airframe with an autonomous control system developed by Grollo Aerospace.

In July, the company submitted a proposal for an A$2.85 million Defence Innovation Hub contract that would complete development of the training missile, as well as ‘help protect RAN ships and personnel and open up a hitherto-untapped global market for high-speed aerial training targets’, the company noted in a 31 October statement.

Currently, the RAN simulates missile attacks by flying crewed or unmanned aircraft towards them or even firing artillery shells near vessels, but neither method is particularly realistic.

As EVADER is air-launched from over the horizon, it ‘can accurately replicate the flight path and trajectory of a genuine, sea-skimming anti-ship missile, including some terminal manoeuvres’, Grollo argued, claiming: ‘Its training value for ships’ combat systems and their operators in realistically simulating such threats is incalculable.’

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