Roland (air defence)

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Roland

Type	Surface to air missile
Production history
Manufacturer	Euromissile
Specifications
Weight	67 kg
Length	2.40 m
Diameter	16 cm

Warhead	6.5 kg (14.3 lb) pre-fragmented high-explosive

Engine	Dual-thrust solid-fueled rocket: Booster: "Roubaix" rocket, 15.3 kN for 1.7 s Sustainer: "Lampyre" rocket, 1.96 kN for 13.2 s
Wingspan	50 cm
Operational range	8000 m
Flight altitude	5500 m
Speed	Mach 1.6
Guidance system	tracking radar

The Roland is a Franco-German mobile short-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) system. The Roland is one of a very few foreign SAM systems to be purchased for the US Army.

1 Versions
2 Carriers
3 Users
4 Rolandgate
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Versions

Four different versions of Roland have been produced so far:

Roland 1 - manual optical tracking and guidance, entered service 1977
Roland 2 - full automatic tracking and guidance with radar, 1981
Roland 3 - extended range, enlarged warhead, 1988
Roland VT1 - hypervelocity missile

Current systems are capable of launching Roland 2, 3 or VT1 missiles.

[edit] Carriers

The Roland system has been installed on a variety of platforms, amongst them:

tracked

wheeled

ACMAT 6x6
MAN 6x6, 8x8

An airliftable shelter named Roland CAROL has also been developed, which is a 7.8t container that can be deployed on the ground to protect fixed assets like airfields or depots or fitted on a truck.

[edit] Users

Roland is currently in service with the defence forces of France, Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria, Qatar, Slovenia (9 Roland IIs), Spain, and Venezuela. It is no longer in service in Germany (The German Army will replace Roland with the new and much more capable development: LFK NG), the USA^[1] or Iraq. It is said that an Iraqi Roland missile succeeded in shooting down a US A-10 Thunderbolt II in the beginning of the Iraq War^{[citation needed]}, though this claim has never been verified and most likely originates from ongoing anti-French sentiment.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Rolandgate

In 2003, controversy erupted between Poland and France when Polish forces from the Multinational force in Iraq found French Roland surface-to-air missiles. Polish and international press reported that Polish officers claimed these missiles had been manufactured in 2003. France pointed out that the latest Roland missiles were manufactured in the early 1990s and thus the manufacturing date was necessarily an error (it turned out it was probably the expiry date that was indicated), and affirmed that it had never sold weapons to Iraq in violation of the embargo. Investigations by the Polish authorities came to the conclusion that the persons responsible for the scandal were low level commanders, Wojskowe Służby Informacyjne the Polish Army's intelligence had not verified their claims before they were leaked to the press. Poland apologized to France for the scandal, but these allegations against France worsened the already somewhat strained relationships between the two countries. The entire incident was called sarcasticly "Rolandgate" by the Polish media, using the unofficial naming conventions of US political scandals after Watergate.