Procurement: November 21, 2000

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France is desperately trying to salvage its investment in the TRIGAT-Medium Range anti-tank missile program. After the British and Dutch withdrew, the remaining expected production was not enough to make the missile economically viable. The French have a plan, however, to build a modified version of TRIGAT that would use the firing post and guidance system of the current Milan anti-tank missile. Milan is claimed by the French to be the most successful Western anti-tank missile, having been adopted by 41 countries. The resulting TRIGAN missile would have some of the advantages of TRIGAT (it could be fired from inside an enclosed space, has a tandem warhead to penetrate reactive armor, and could reach 2,400 meters, 400 meters farther than Milan) but would not have all of the advantages of TRIGAT. The modified firing posts could still fire their existing Milan-3 missiles for training, saving TRIGANs for combat. (Milan-2 firing posts could be modified to fire TRIGAN, but doing so would cost somewhat more than modifying Milan-3 firing posts.)--Stephen V Cole