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The U.S. Army said it fired Newly deployed precision strike missiles The missile was launched from the Pacific island of Palau and attacked a moving target at sea, marking the first time the missile has been used outside a U.S. test range.
First group Precision Strike Missile (PrSM),At December 2023 Begins replacing legacy Army tactical missile systems.
From Multi-domain Task Force III The 1-181st Artillery Regiment of the Tennessee National Guard, participating in Valiant Shield, the U.S. Pacific Command’s major exercise, fired two simulated missiles from the Army’s Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher (AML) “and was able to coordinate with other joint assets to engage mobile maritime targets,” the Army said in a statement.
The statement noted that the participation of PrSM and AML in the joint live-fire exercise “SINKEX” held in Palau was “an important milestone in the Army’s development of long-range firepower capabilities.”
Still in the prototype stage, the AML launcher will be able to operate in convoy and use autonomous waypoint navigation, teleoperation and remote launch turret and fire control operation.
Missiles can be launched from M142 High Mobility Rocket System and the M270A2 multiple rocket launcher system — are critical to the service as it seeks a deep strike capability that can counter Russian and Chinese technology. U.S. commander in the Indo-Pacific There has been a desire to acquire the capability to strike out-of-area targets more than 400 kilometers away.
beat Hitting moving targets at sea from land is extremely challengingFor example, the Army’s HIMARS rocket Offshore live-fire exercise A training facility near Subic Bay, Philippines, in 2023. The service found targeting challenging because the munitions could not easily account for drift. Drift at sea is a complex issue because a ship can move 30 to 40 meters in the time it takes to lock on to a target and fire its munitions.
A precision strike missile equipped with a ship-killing seeker would make this task much easier.
Lockheed Development
The program was originally a competition between Lockheed Martin and RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies), but the latter had difficulty getting the weapon ready for flight testing during the technology maturation and risk reduction phase of the program. The two sides decided to end their efforts in March 2020.
Lockheed continues to conduct Phase 1 development and flight testing alone. The Army approves the PrSM program to enter Engineering and Manufacturing Development Phase In September 2021, the company was awarded a $62 million early combat capability production contract.
A year later, the Air Force again awarded Lockheed another $158 million to purchase more early operational capability PrSMs.
The Army is planning to add add-ons, including an enhanced seeker to better engage moving targets at sea, and technology to provide increased lethality and greater range. PrSM’s immediate focus is on pursuing ship-killing capabilities at sea.
Lockheed and the RTX and Northrop Grumman teams will compete for subsequent phases of the PrSM program. The U.S. Army awarded RTX a $97.7 million contract in February 2023 to advance the design of its Long-Range Maneuver Fires program, which is planned to become the PrSM Increment 4 program.
Lockheed won a $33 million contract at the same time to develop incremental capabilities. Greatly expanded the range of PrSM, It could more than double from the planned 499 kilometers (310 miles).
The U.S. Army has been allowed to develop longer-range missiles after the U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia in 2019. The treaty had blocked the development of missiles with ranges between 499 and 5,000 kilometers.
In October 2021, the Army conducted a long-range flight test of the PrSM, which is believed to have exceeded the current range requirement of 499 kilometers.
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