One of the most important Ballistic Missile Defense advances in recent years has been "hit to kill" technology. As vital as this technology has proven to be, there are still unanticipated phenomenon (i.e. Iraqi Scud breakup and flutter trajectories in Desert Storm) as well as offensive missile countermeasures which have the potential to reduce BMD kill vehicle effectiveness. One effective means of enhancing kill vehicle effectiveness is enlarging the destructive volume of the kill vehicle. This has been done via special devices(such as expanding wheel spring on the first exoatmospheric SDI intercept) and proposals such as expanding rod warheads or fragmenting warheads. Metal Storm is a well developed, flexible and fully patented and fully demonstrated technology which promises improved kill vehicle reliability against unanticipated phenomenon and countermeasures. This proposal is to accomplish exploratory development on this concept for enhanced kill vehicle performance and kill potential.
