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Saab launches HEAT 758: a new round to defeat Russian reactive armour

Saab demonstrated the HEAT 758, a new 84mm anti-tank round for the Carl-Gustaf M4 recoilless rifle, during a live firing at Karlskoga, Sweden on May 7. The round is designed to defeat modern explosive reactive armor including Russia's Kontakt-1, Kontakt-5, and Relikt systems. Unlike conventional tandem-charge munitions, which use a precursor charge to detonate the reactive armor before the main warhead hits, the HEAT 758 uses what Saab calls a Non-Initiating Precursor. It strikes hard enough to physically penetrate the ERA cassette and open a path for the shaped charge jet, but not hard enough to trigger the explosive inside. This avoids the blast interference that degrades the main charge in traditional designs. Saab said the concept was validated through 50,000 AI-driven digital simulations of warhead-to-armor interactions. The round penetrates up to 700mm of rolled homogeneous armor at an effective range of 700 meters.

The HEAT 758 also introduces Firebolt, a digital communication link between the munition, the Carl-Gustaf M4 launcher, and the Fire Control Device 558. The system reads ammunition type and propellant temperature to calculate an optimized ballistic solution before firing. Each round weighs about 7 kg and measures under one meter, with a carbon composite sleeve and titanium barrel liner. Saab confirmed the HEAT 758 is already in production for an undisclosed customer. The Carl-Gustaf is in service with more than 40 armed forces worldwide and has seen heavy use in Ukraine, where defeating ERA-equipped Russian armor at infantry range remains a central tactical problem.

Saabs new anti-tank ammunition round HEAT 758 for the Carl-Gustaf weapon \\ Source: SAAB

\\ Signal Watch

ArianeGroup, Thales fire FLP-t 150 for first time in France’s LRU race \\ AeroTime

ArianeGroup and Thales completed the first firing of their FLP-T 150 ballistic munition, three weeks after rival MBDA and Safran fired Thundart at the same range. Both rounds are competing under France's FLP-T program to replace the Army's nine aging Lance-Roquettes Unitaires by 2030. The FLP-T 150 uses propulsion and guidance technology derived from ArianeGroup's M51 submarine launched ballistic missile, following a ballistic trajectory with terminal maneuvering via rear-mounted fins for accuracy in GNSS jammed environments. Range exceeds 150 km. The X-Fire launcher, developed by Thales and Soframe, is designed to fire both the sovereign FLP-T round and foreign munitions, and integrates into the existing ATLAS artillery command network. The launcher's own demonstration firings are expected before the end of May. Like Thundart, the system is fully ITAR-free.

U.S. Army evaluates autonomous EW drone that hunts jammers \\ Defence Blog

L3Harris deployed its Deceptor EW payload on multiple drones during a US Army experiment, demonstrating a system that autonomously detected, geolocated, and jammed hostile RF emitters without human direction. The payloads operated within DiSCO, L3Harris's distributed spectrum operations ecosystem, which fuses data from multiple airborne sensors in real time and coordinates electronic attack at machine speed. Deceptor is built around commercial hardware in a form factor small enough for Group 1 and 2 drones. The design is intended to make EW a volume play rather than a specialist capability: cheap enough to lose, numerous enough to saturate. In a separate March demonstration, L3Harris integrated DiSCO with Shield AI's Hivemind autonomy software, linking electromagnetic battle management directly to autonomous drone flight control.

\\ Quick Links

Pratt & Whitney and GE Set to Assemble Next-Gen Adaptive Cycle Engines \\ The Aviationist

New ‘HADES’ Laser System From US Firm Delivers 70kW Firepower \\ NextGen Defense

Drone Swarms Packed Into Unassuming Containers Sought By DARPA \\ TWZ

AIRO Presents RQ-70 VTOL Drone for Long-Range ISR Missions \\ NextGen Defense

Rafael unveils Storm Shield electronic warfare protection system for unmanned aerial platforms \\ Defence Industry Europe

German EW firm Aaronia debuts new counter-drone spectrum tools \\ Defence Blog

Saab Builds Bolide 2 Missile for the Era of Cheap Drone Warfare \\ NextGen Defense

GA-ASI and U.S. Air Force Test APKWS Guided Rockets on MQ-9A Reaper \\ The Aviationist

Over ten Ukrainian units deploy AI point defence turret \\ Army Technology

U.S. Army clears armed robot dog for special operations evaluation \\ Defence Blog

Turkey unveils its first domestically built mini-submarine \\ Defence Blog

Trump-class Battleship will get same nuclear reactor as Ford aircraft carrier \\ Breaking Defense

Israeli firm DSIT unveils multi-layer undersea threat detection system \\ Defence Blog

Saab unveils Barracuda Poncho camouflage system designed to protect soldiers from thermal and UAV detection \\ Defence Industry Europe

The laser weapons race enters its industrial era \\ Fast Company

“The ability to move tactically in the environment, to plan your route, to navigate — the toughness it takes to be an all-weather asset as a Reconnaissance Marine … a lot of things have not changed,”

Maj. Gen. Michael Brooks, the top officer for the service’s training command

\\ Beyond the Beam

US researchers break 40-year-old record, reprogram materials using electron beam \\ Interesting Engineering

NASA pushes Mars helicopter rotor blades beyond Mach 1 in testing \\ AeroTime

French startup develops pneumatic-wing cargo drone \\ Defence Blog

New Barracuda Poncho camouflage system \\ Source: SAAB

\\ Opportunity Intel

DARPA opens solicitation to commercialize agency-funded defense technologies \\ Military Aerospace

NASA seeks industry insight into payload processing facilities for future nuclear space missions \\ Military Aerospace

Stockholm fund raises $5.4M to bridge Ukrainian innovation to NATO \\ Defence Blog

SAFE programme: Poland signs €43.7 billion EU defence loan deal to support armed forces modernisation \\ Defence Industry Europe

Canada Invests More Than $9.3M in Alberta Through the Regional Defence Investment Initiative (RDII) \\ Canadian Defence Review

Japan to raise defence budget \\ Australian Defence Magazine

2026 Defence Budget released \\ Australian Defence Magazine

10,000 Low-Cost Cruise Missiles In Three Years Procurement Plan Laid Out By Pentagon (Updated) \\ TWZ

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