06 Aug 12. Lockheed Martin has delivered the 20,000th Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) Unitary rocket to the U.S. Army. With a range of up to 70 kilometers, GMLRS Unitary is an all-weather, precision-strike weapon that can be deployed rapidly, producing pinpoint engagements with minimal collateral damage. The GMLRS rocket is assembled at the company’s production facility in Camden, Ark.
“The 20,000 production milestone is a great achievement, and recognition of the continued relevancy of GMLRS to our U.S. and allied warfighters,” said Lt. Col. T.J. Wright, the U.S. Army’s product manager for Precision Guided Missiles and Rockets. “GMLRS has a bright future as the long-range, precision-fire weapon of choice when commanders need to decisively and accurately attack high-value targets while minimizing the risk of collateral damage. The development of the GMLRS Alternative Warhead will also add a critical area weapon capability to our warfighters who rely on GMLRS to deliver all-weather, 24/7 responsive fires when they need it most.”
“Soldiers and Marines on the ground depend on GMLRS, and we continue to honor that trust by delivering one of the most accurate and reliable precision-strike artillery systems ever produced,” said Scott Arnold, vice president of precision fires in Lockheed Martin’s Missiles and Fire Control business. “Our workforce is committed to providing weapon systems that protect our warfighters when it is needed most.”
To date, more than 2,300 of the long-range GMLRS Unitary rounds have been fired by U.S. Army, Marine Corps and British forces in coalition operations, and the rocket has achieved a combat reliability rate of 98 percent.
02 Aug 12. China ‘developing’ navalised version of DH-10 cruise missile. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) appears to be developing a ship-borne variant of the land-based Dong Hai-10 (DH-10) land-attack cruise missile (LACM). Images of the launcher mounted on PLAN test vessel hull 891, which first appeared on the China-Defense blog, could be the first strong evidence that the Chinese navy is evaluating or certifying a naval variant of the DH-10 LACM. (Source: Jane’s Navy International)
02 Aug 12. DARPA looks to HTV-2 experience for Integrated Hypersonics baseline development. A Lockheed Martin-built air vehicle based on the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) experimental test programme will complete a flight-test mission by the end of Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14) to inform the development of a follow-on Hypersonic X-plane (HX), according to plans laid out by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The test activity forms part of DARPA’s Integrated Hypersonics (IH) programme, under which the agency is develop, mature and test next-generation technologies needed for global-range, manoeuvre, hypersonic flight at Mach 20 and above. (Source: Jane’s, IDR)
02 Aug 12. US may agree to longer-ranged South Korean missiles. Current limitations on the maximum range of South Korea’s indigenous surface-to-surface missiles have been the subject of renewed negotiations with the United States. According to the local press, discussions held following ministerial-level talks in Washington, DC on 13-14 June are nearing a compromise that would extend the current limit of 300 km (until 2001 it was 180 km) to more than 500 km. (Source: Jane’s, JMR)
02 Aug 12. US Navy looks to modified Tomahawk to meet interim Offensive ASuW need. The US Navy (USN) and Raytheon Missile Systems are advancing plans to develop a maritime interdiction modification package for the Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile to meet an urgent USN requirement for a so-called Interim Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare (OASuW) missile. Known as Multi-Mission Tomahawk (MMT), the projected near-term anti-ship weapon will be created by adding a new moving target seeker and upgraded datalink to the existing Block IV system baseline, creating a semi-autonomous weapon capable of detection, discrimin