Leonardo has signed new contracts with the defence ministries of the UK and Italy for its LINAPS artillery pointing system, the company announced on 20 May 2024.
In one new contract the Italian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has placed an order with Leonardo for 39 LINAPS systems to equip its army’s FH70 towed howitzers with precision fire capabilities.
Meanwhile, the UK MoD’s Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) organisation has placed a support contract to ensure the readiness of LINAPS on board the British Army’s L118 light guns through to their 2030 out-of-service date.
Designed and manufactured at Leonardo UK’s Edinburgh site, LINAPS is in service with the armed forces of the UK, Italy, Poland, Canada, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Malaysia, Thailand and India.
Fitted to the British Army’s L118 light guns, LINAPS was successfully deployed as part of Operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’. It was further proven on operations in Afghanistan on Canadian Army M777 howitzers.
The ‘brains’ of LINAPS is the FIN3110/FIN3210 inertial navigation unit, which provides the orientation and positional data for gun laying and navigation, ensuring firing accuracy. According to official Leonardo documentation, LINAPS offers a horizontal circular error probable (CEP) of 5 m using a combination of inertial navigation system (INS) and GPS, or 20 m or 0.2% of distance travelled (whichever is the larger) when using INS and an odometer. In terms of vertical position, the system has a probable error of 5 m with INS/GPS or 15 m (or 0.15% of distance travelled, whichever is the larger) when using INS and an odometer.
In future, data-generating sensors like the FIN3120 will form part of Leonardo’s wider approach to a more connected battlespace, with multi-domain integration underpinned by the company’s industry-leading expertise in secure cloud technologies, data and analytics, the company stated in a press release.
