Air Bursting Ammunition

Alliant Techsystems will provide 30mm air bursting ammunition for the U.S. Marine's Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. ATK will provide 1200 rounds within the next six months to the U.S. Navy for qualification tests. ATK's air bursting technology is an operator-friendly design that can be scaled down and integrated into other medium-caliber gun systems such as the 25mm M242 Chain Gun. The M242 is currently deployed on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and Light Armored Vehicle-25. Key components of the system include ATK's Mk44 Chain Gun, a gun control unit with an inductive fuze setter; a fire control system and the 30mm x 173mm Air Bursting Munition. Milliseconds before the round is chambered, the fuze is programmed to explode at the precise range selected by the gunner -- who uses an advanced laser range finder to determine the distance. Once the round exits the gun, the ATK-designed fuze technology computes the projectile's revolutions and velocity to determine the exact moment of detonation.