Enhanced Lethality Warhead Proposal

IS4S proposes an enhanced lethality warhead through the integration of additive manufacturing (AM) and reactive materials (RM) in a novel warhead configuration in the same form-factor as fielded weapons to allow those weapons to ‘punch above their weight class’ by efficiently engaging a broader range of target sets. The proposed warhead mass, volume and form will fit within an approximately 7-inch diameter, 7-inch-long boundary compatible with a missile under development by L3Harris. Conventional weapons are subtractively manufactured, which limits the achievable geometry of the warhead structure – metal additive manufacturing opens up that space such that novel AM-enabled design features create efficiencies in fragmentation lethality tailoring, explosive claim-space, and blast directionality. Conventional weapons further rely on traditional HE and inert fragments; a combination of reactive fragments with additively manufactured inert materials in the IS4S design can increase the available energy in the warhead while enhancing the efficiency of energy transfer to the target.