Sealed round

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A sealed round is a munition which is typically stored in some kind of container (usually a cylinder or box, but the container may in fact be the outside of the munition), so that the munition does not require any sort of maintenance and is stored in this container right up until the point that it is used. The advantage of this type of system is that such munitions can be stored for long periods until they are needed without needing to be periodically checked and possibly repaired. Typically these, like all munitions, still do have a shelf-life — but it is often quite long.

Many surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and air-to-air missiles (AAMs), which are traditionally very maintenance-heavy systems, are moving to this type of system. Bullets have been sealed rounds ever since the cartridge case was invented, which has been a great boon to infantry. Examples of modern missile systems which feature sealed rounds include:

The MIM-104, S-300P and S-300V missiles are stored in cylinders, which they are ejected out of upon launch. The 9M33 missiles are stored in boxes in the factory and launched out of them. The AIM-54C missiles are not stored in any kind of container, but are sealed unlike the earlier AIM-54A and AIM-54B which exchanged fluids with the host aircraft. In this case, the advantage of low maintenance has been exchanged for the disadvantage of lower capability, but this is not the case with the other examples.

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