Polyphem (missile)

The Polyphem was a proposed light-weight fibre-optic wire-guided surface-to-surface missile with a range of 60 km.

Polyphem-S missile

It uses a sealed round, a solid propellant booster rocket to launch the missile out of its canister to an initial height, so that the wings and control surfaces can unfold, and a more fuel economic turbojet cruise engine kicks in to propel the missile.

The missile can be programmed to follow a preset course, using GPS or inertial guidance. An infrared seeker can be used to automatically pick a target and for the terminal guidance phase, but it is also possible to transfer the thermal images back to the launching platform via a 200 MBit/s data link provided by an optical fibre, and manually select the target.

The Polyphem program was started in 1994 by Germany, France and Italy. Italy later left the project.

A naval version, called Polyphem-S, was initially selected for the Braunschweig class corvette as anti-ship and land-attack missile, but that has been cancelled.

The Polyphem program as a whole was cancelled in 2003.[1]

Polyphem is the German Name of Polyphemus, the cyclops in the Odyssey that got his eye stabbed out by Ulysses.

The system is roughly comparable to the Serbian ALAS missile.