Raytheon Company,
Tucson AZ: NetFires LLC, a joint venture between Raytheon Missile Systems business and Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, successfully demonstrated the ability of its Precision Attack Missile warhead to penetrate a fortified bunker target, a key program requirement. The Precision Attack Missile is part of the Non Line-of-Sight-Launch System currently under development for the U.S.
Army's Future Combat System and the U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ships.
The testing was performed at the Redstone Arsenal Technical Test Center, Huntsville, Ala., against an earth and timber bunker target. The missile simulation test verified that the Precision Attack Missile warhead will detonate upon impact and perforate the bunker wall structure as required.
All primary and secondary test objectives were met during the test. This successful “Dynamic Bunker” test provides data to support follow-on Army and Navy warhead testing.
“This represents a continual step forward in delivering precision fires with maximum lethality to the Army and Navy combat forces,” said Col. Doug Dever, U.S. Army's Non Line-of-Sight-Launch System project manager.
The multi-target warhead and fuze, developed by General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, applies cutting-edge technology to provide diverse mission, multi-target capability for the Non Line-of-Sight-Launch System. It possesses both a shaped-charge capability, to defeat armored targets, and a blast fragmentation capability for use against buildings, bunkers, small boats, lightly armored vehicles and other soft targets.
To deliver the multipurpose warhead for precision-strike targeting, the Precision Attack Missile is equipped with a dual mode seeker (imaging infrared and semi-active laser), as well as GPS and inertial guidance.
The Non Line-of-Sight-Launch System is one of the 14 Future Combat System's core systems. It will operate as a part of the Future Combat System systems-of-systems to meet the requirements of the Army's future brigade combat teams and provide increased capability for the current force's modular brigade combat teams. It is also one of the key littoral combat ship mission modules.
Compared to systems with equivalent firepower (kills per combat load), the Non Line of-Sight-Launch System provides a modular, highly deployable and flexible precision fires capability to the U.S. Army, Navy and joint maneuver forces for a very low life-cycle system cost.
