AHEAD ammunition

Advanced hit efficiency and destruction (AHEAD) ammunition is a type of airburst round ammunition that releases a cloud of sub-projectiles just ahead of a target, enabling it to engage conventional as well as low, slow and small (LSS) air threats including unmanned aerial vehicles and perform counter rocket, artillery, and mortar duties. The 35 mm variety produced by Oerlikon Contraves splits each projectile into 152 tungsten submunitions "that form a cone-shaped pattern to destroy a target's control surfaces and other vital components". This type of ammunition is listed as an official acronym at the British Ministry of Defence.

Types
There were, in 2017, four types of 35 mm AHEAD ammunition:
 * PMD062 with a payload of 152 sub-projectiles
 * PMD330 with 497 sub-projectiles
 * PMD375 with 860 sub-projectiles
 * PMD428 with more than 600 sub-projectiles

History
AHEAD ammunition was developed as early as 1993.

In 2011, the government of the Republic of China in Taiwan procured itself a Skyguard system, which is based on the AHEAD ammunition.

In 2012, AHEAD was delivered to the German Air Force by Rheinmetall for their MANTIS Air Defence System.

At the 2018 Euronaval trade show, the Rheinmetall Oerlikon Millennium Gun was noted as able to fire AHEAD ammunition.

In 2018, AHEAD ammunition-capable Oerlikon revolver guns were proposed to the Egyptian Ministry of Defense by the manufacturer, in order to update its air defense system.

In January 2019, the South African Defence Force boasted about its upgraded ability to fire AHEAD ammunition at airborne targets via a networked multi-gun emplacement.

In March 2021, Rheinmetall Air Defence unveiled the Skyranger 30, an air defense turret that uses a 30 mm gun firing a 30 mm version of the AHEAD projectile.

In June 2021, Rheinmetall tested its 35 mm revolver gun against drone swarms with the use of AHEAD ammunition. Firing PMD 428 rounds, an eight-drone swarm was neutralized with an 18-round burst, most of them being destroyed with the first six rounds. In mid-2022, AHEAD was the subject of study by a group of Chinese scientists.

In August 2022, the munitions were listed on the scrapped purchase order for the towed air defence gun missile systems (ADGMS) of the Indian Ministry of Defence. It seemed the matter excited some controversy around this time.

In October 2022, the munitions were listed as one of the technical requirements for a gun that would be procured by the Indian MoD.