June 23, 200818 yr Nice set of photos ... From Aviation Week's ARES Blog Eurotorp's MU90 Finally Fired From Australian Warship Posted by Joris Janssen Lok at 6/23/2008 1:29 AM CDT Australia's Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) successfully test fired the new Franco-Italian Eurotorp MU90 lightweight anti-submarine warfare (ASW) torpedo late last week, the country's defense minister Joel Fitzgibbon says. “While the MU90 Lightweight Torpedo has been successfully tested in Europe, this Acceptance Test and Evaluation exercise represents the first time an MU90 Lightweight Torpedo has been fired from an Australian warship,” Fitzgibbon says. The test firing happened from the Anzac-class frigate HMAS Toowoomba at sea in the Western Australian Exercise Area approximately 30 km off Mandurah in Western Australia. It was a long-awaited milestone for the DMO’s delayed Joint Project 2070, Project Djimindi – Replacement Lightweight ASW Torpedo. According to Fitsgibbon, “the MU90 will provide a significant upgrade to the ASW capabilities of the surface combatant platforms of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), including the RAN’s FFG and Anzac frigates.” The MU90 Lightweight Torpedo is being acquired in a three-phase program worth A$616 million at January 2008 prices. The Eurotorp MU90/Impact torpedo was selected in 1999 after a competitive tender. The MU90 is 3 meters long, weighs 300 kg, has a range of greater than 10 km and is designed to track and attack quiet-running submarines at depths to more than 1,000 meters, according to the Australian defense dept. *** And now for the bad news ... *** The Australian Minister of Defence Mr. Fitzgibbon has ordered that the airborne integration portion of the MU90 torpedo project will be canceled. "I am pleased that we have been able to make the MU90 work off the navy's warships," Mr Fitzgibbon said. "However, I was not prepared to follow the previous government's practice of gambling with taxpayers' money by proceeding with the allocation of $300million to fit the torpedo to various aircraft while doubt remained that it would work properly in that role." The Defence Department had planned to fit the torpedo to up to five separate platforms starting with the Anzac frigates, adding to the overall risk of the project.. "A complicated systems-integration task involving old aircraft sets off several bright-red warning lights for me, especially when Australia would have been the only country attempting to make that aircraft and weapon combination," he said. Patrick Walters, Integration doubts sink $300m torpedo project, The Australian, June 21, 2008
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