A systems approach to stealth on the ground revisited

This new security development is expected to increase interest fromNorthern European states in supporting the development of conceptually newstealthy ground platforms, incorporating a decade of advances in technology andexperiences from stealth platforms at sea and in the air. The scope of thiscase study is to draw experience from where we left off. At the end of the1990s there was growing interest in stealth for combat vehicles in Sweden. Anambitious technology demonstrator project was launched. One of the outcomes wasa proposed Systems Engineering process tailored for signature managementpresented to SPIE in 2002.(Olsson et.al, A systems approach…, Proc. SPIE 4718 )The process was used for the Swedish/BAE Systems Hägglunds AB development of amultirole armored platform (The Swedish acronym is SEP). Before development wascompleted there was a change of procurement policy in Sweden from domesticdevelopment towards Governmental Off-The-Shelf, preceded by a Swedish ArmedForces change of focus from national defense only, towards expeditionarymissions. Lessons learned, of value for future development, are presented. Theyare deduced from interviews of key-personnel, on the procurer and industrysides respectively, and from document reviews.