The Roland system is effective against air threats from extremely low to medium altitude. It is available as a standalone weapon system on a single vehicle or as an airliftable shelter, Roland Carol. Roland Carol has been in production since 1995 with 20 systems delivered to the French Army and 11 to the German Air Force.

As part of contracts with OCCAR, the European Defense Procurement Agency, and the French DGA, a programme to upgrade the Roland missile system is in progress. The modernisation includes a new BBKS command and control system and the fitting of the infrared Glaive sight from SAGEM for automatic multi-channel target tracking. The first prototype fire unit was completed in June 1999 and trials began in September 1999. The upgraded Roland will be called Roland M3S. The second prototype in the CAROL shelter-based configuration was completed in October 1999.

The system is capable of firing Roland 2 and Roland 3 missiles and the Roland VT1 hypervelocity missile. Roland 2 and 3 missiles have command to line-of-sight guidance and hollow charge warhead, with both impact and proximity fuzing. Roland 3 has longer range, 8 km to Roland 2’s 6.3 km. It also has a larger warhead, 9.2 kg, to Roland 2’s 6.5 kg.

The Roland VT1 hypervelocity missile is manufactured by Euromissile under license from Thales (formerly Thomson-CSF), who developed the missile for the Crotale NG missile system. The VT1 has a speed of 1250 metres/sec and range of 11 km. The Command to Line Of Sight (CLOS) guidance uses radar and electro-optical sensors. The missile is armed with a focused blast and fragmentation 13 kg warhead, initiated by an RF proximity fuse. 10 missiles are carried, two in the launch beams and eight in the magazines. Reloading is possible in 6 seconds.

The Roland M3S has a dual surveillance system has 3D radar and infrared sensors operating in parallel. The target tracking system involves radar, infrared and CCTV operating in parallel with instantaneous channel switching. Missile tracking is performed by the radar and dual wavelength infrared tracker, operating in parallel with automatic selection of the optimum channel and instantaneous channel switching.

The system has a 3D X-band surveillance radar. The frequency-agile track-while-scan radar has a range of 25 km at a maximum altitude of 9 km. The tracking radar has a range of 20 km.

The SAGEM Glaive integrated electro-optic sight, developed for the Roland 3 modernisation,, will also be retrofitted to French and German Armies’ Roland 2 systems. The sight includes: a dual field of view thermal camera based on a 288 x 4 IRCCD (infrared charge couple device) detector; dual field of view CCD TV camera; eyesafe laser rangefinder; and infrared missile tracker operating at 1 micron and 10 microns. Range is stated as 20 km for aircraft and 10 km for helicopters.

The upgraded Roland has a new BBKS command and control system with three multi-function colour displays, new guidance computer, co-ordination computer and MIL-Bus interconnection. The system is capable of being integrated into ground-to-air C3I (command, control, computer/intelligence) systems and is interoperable with systems such as Patriot, Hawk and AWACS.

Roland Carol is installed in a lightweight, compact aluminium shelter, which weighs 8.3 tons. The system is air-transportable on C-130 Hercules or C-160 Transall aircraft and can be installed on a range of carriers, trailers and trucks. French Army systems are mounted on a semi-trailer towed by ACMAT 6 x 6 truck. German systems are mounted on MAN 6 x 6 vehicles.

The system has two missiles ready for firing, with eight in reserve in two vertical magazines holding four missiles each.