The French DGA (Route Générale de l’Armement, Directorate Normal of Armaments) efficiently carried out qualification firing of the upgraded Air-to-Floor Medium-Vary Strategic Missile (ASMPA) on 23 March 2022, with out its warhead. All through its flight part, the missile was monitored by DGA Essais Missile (missile trials) sources in Biscarrosse, Hourtin and Quimper, the ‘Monge’ take a look at and measurement vessel, with the participation of DGA Essais en vol. The missile, developed by MBDA, was fired by a Rafale that took off from Cazaux Air Power Base 120, as a part of a program managed by the French protection procurement company (DGA).

The ASMP (air-sol moyenne portée; medium-range air to floor missile) is a French nuclear air-launched cruise missile. In French nuclear doctrine, it’s known as a “pre-strategic” weapon, the last-resort “warning shot” previous to a full-scale employment of strategic nuclear weapons. The missile’s building was contracted to Aérospatiale’s Tactical Missile Division, now a part of MBDA. ASMP entered service in Could 1986, changing the sooner free-fall AN-22 bomb on France’s Dassault Mirage IV plane and the AN-52 bomb on Dassault Tremendous Étendard. ASMP entered service in Could 1986. An improved model, the ASMP-A, was developed between 1997 to 2009.

Commercial

ASMP-A on French Air Power Dassult Rafale Fighter

About 84 weapons are stockpiled. Service plane are the Dassault Mirage 2000N, Rafale and Tremendous Étendard. The Mirage IVP carried the ASMP till retired in 1996. ASMP and ASMP-A is 5.38 m lengthy and weighs 860 kg. It’s a supersonic standoff missile powered by a liquid gas ramjet. It flies at Mach 2 to Mach 3, with a variety between 80 km and 300 km for the ASMP and 500 km for the ASMP-A relying on flight profile. The ASMP makes use of the TN 81 warhead, which has a variable-yield of 100 to 300 kilotons of TNT (420 to 1,260 TJ). In 1991, 90 missiles and 80 warheads had been reported to have been produced. By 2001, 60 had been operational.

A complicated model referred to as Air-Sol Moyenne Portée-Amélioré ASMP-A (improved ASMP) has a variety of about 500 kilometres (310 mi) at a velocity of as much as Mach 3 with the brand new TNA (Tête Nucléaire Aéroportée) 300kt thermonuclear warhead. It entered service in October 2009 with the Mirage 2000NK3 of squadron EC 3/4 at Istres and on July 2010 with the Rafales of squadron EC 1/91 at Saint Dizier. 54 ASMP-A have been delivered to French air drive. The ASMPA-R (renovated) mission, launched in 2016, will see the missile’s vary prolonged and a brand new 300kt thermonuclear warhead added.