Principles of Countermeasures
For the visitor to this site, not familiar with the technology of countermeasures, the accusation forged by the regime against AML (see relevant section) alleging that COUNTERMEASURES = MUNITIONS, could easily pass. Especially when one considers that countermeasures are predominately deployed by military aircraft, helicopters, naval vessels, etc.
The facts are the following: countermeasures are systems for active protection of military assets but also of civilian airliners from missiles. Indeed after the successful use of countermeasures by the military, the gradual use by some airlines has commenced after modification of civilian aircraft by speacialist companies. There exist well documented cases in the international press where civilian airliners successfully launched countermeasures and 100s of lives were saved !
Under Luxembourg law of 1983, munitions and arms are defined as devices intended to cause harm to persons and/or properties. It is clear that countermeasures are not included. Unless a hostile missile (air-to-air or surface-to-air launched) is included in the property which the law is meant to protect !
It should be noted that a countermeasure in order to be activated requires (a) the complex mechanism of a firing system, not manportable ! but resident in the structuret of an aircraft, helicopter, naval vessel and (b) an actuator otherwise known as impulse cartridge or squib. The industrial concern, owners of AML produce the above two in other facilities but non in the G.D.L.
As countermeasures contain chemicals their storage and service life are limited. Furthermore many thousands are fired every year (per user) for purposes of training and familiarisation of pilots, therefore they are consummables. Unit prices range from few tens of euro for relatively simple designs to hundreds of euro for complex ones. Clearly the worldwide market is quite significant and the "players" are very few companies with the technology and know-how.
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protection of airliners by deployment of countermeasures against missiles
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protection of military aircraft by deployment of countermeasures