In October 2006, the French and Italian Navies gave official approval to end the MU90 torpedo reliability demonstration programme. The MU90 is today recognized as the best-performing LWT ever.
The MU90 ALWT project is the result of the strong will of the French and Italian Navies to merge their domestic developments. The MU90 project could not have been successful without the French and Italian political will to unify their operational requirements, share the development costs and deploy the top experts of the two countries in the project.
The MU90 features innovative and unique advanced technologies applied to underwater weapons. Due to great operational ambitions, the technical and manufacturing challenges for the torpedo designers to overcome have been significant throughout. The aim was to develop a weapon fully compliant with modern and complex anti-submarine operational needs and suitable for global application. These design and industrial difficulties have been overcome thanks to synergic and complementary efforts deployed by the French and Italian technical staff.
The development of the weapon was completed in 1997, and was followed by extensive TECHEVAL and OPEVAL phases. The torpedo’s mass-production started in 2001 and today more than 1000 MU90 rounds have been manufactured for the French, Italian and a number of NATO and Allied Navies.
While the torpedo’s mass-production was progressing, an extensive MU90 Torpedo Reliability Demonstration Programme (TRDP) was launched to further maximize the torpedo’s reliability. The TRPD was successfully completed in October 2006 after demonstrating the MU90 reliability’s had reached incomparable levels.
To achieve that, a set of improvements for the weapon were developed: the BLOCK1 mod. kit. The MU90 (BLOCK1) has been subject to two years of extensive laboratory and sea testing, including more than 15 live torpedo exercise firings, successfully carried out by the French and Italian Navies from different type of platforms, and performed at the extremes of the torpedo’s operational capabilities.
Satisfied with the outstanding results, the French and Italian Navies have finally accepted the MU90 BLOCK1 mod. kit that is to be applied to all MU90 torpedoes. All MU90 customers will enjoy the implementation of the BLOCK1 mod. kit into their torpedo inventory.