The US Army has announced plans to equip its Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTVs) and Infantry Squad Vehicles (ISVs) with armor-busting missiles for added lethality.
Earlier this week, the service issued a request for information (RFI) for a new weapon called the Mobile-Long Range Precision Strike Missile (M-LRPSM) to be integrated into its armored vehicles.
The weapon needs to be able to effectively hit stationary or moving enemy vehicles, field fortifications, and urban structures at least 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) away.
The M-LRPSM system should also be able to adjust trajectory mid-flight, retarget, or abort.
According to the RFI, the missile will be fielded within the Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT), so it should bridge current mobile lethality gaps in the unit.
Additional Requirements
Interested vendors should take note that the M-LRPSM must be able to simultaneously employ four missiles from a single launcher.
It must also have technologies to survive and be resilient in denied, degraded, intermittent, and limited-bandwidth environments.
The army also wants the missile to be self-protected against attacks on embedded networks and the electromagnetic spectrum.
Although the service said the RFI does not constitute a request for proposals, it stated that interested companies should include details about potential maximum production capacities in their submissions.
They must also share their experiences in missile integration and Modular Open System Approach compliance.
One Prime Candidate
Interested firms have until November 17 to submit their papers.
However, a report by Breaking Defense suggests that a joint venture by Rafael and Lockheed could be a prime candidate with their Spike Non-Line-Of-Sight (NLOS) missile system.
The weapon reportedly meets the M-LRPSM’s technical requirements, including the ability to fire from a four-pod launcher and penetrate armored targets up to 32 kilometers (19.8 miles) away.
Last year, the developers told the outlet that the Spike NLOS could be mounted on military vehicles smaller than JLTVs, making the ISV an option.
“If you have the bed-mounted rails on your vehicle, we designed our palletized launcher to readily adapt onto any vehicle that has that … kit on it,” Lockheed program manager Tom Bargnesi said.
