Army Indirect Fire Protection System and New Guided Missile Program

bobbymike said:
Isn’t there a new roro trailer that can pick these items up again in fairly short order?

Yes it’s a fixed target unloaded but would be protecting other fixed assets anyway.
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I thought this was to protect things like Artillery batteries, which need to be able to shoot and scoot?
 
Cordy said:
No mention of the 155mm ramjets range, cost or weight of the business end, the explosive shell
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Range should exceed any of the rocket assisted shells in existence, because the ramjet fuel needs much less oxidizer in the solid fuel mix. How much more range depends on the specific fuel/oxidizer mixes used.

Unless the shell itself is much longer, the ramjet design forces a much smaller explosive load simply because there's less volume for boom due to air ducting and ramjet fuel.

I don't believe that the cost will be all that much once in mass production, the shapes of the different pieces are fairly simple. It's a modified rocket assisted shell in essence, so I expect it to cost about as much as one of the modern rocket assisted shells.
 
Majority of the cost would lie in its guidance given the target set. This isn't a long range conventional shell. its is designed to have better than Excalibur level of guidance, and accuracy at nearly twice its range (58 cal). Army is looking at seeker integration against moving targets.
 
bring_it_on said:
Majority of the cost would lie in its guidance given the target set. This isn't a long range conventional shell. its is designed to have better than Excalibur level of guidance, and accuracy at nearly twice its range (58 cal). Army is looking at seeker integration against moving targets.
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Ah, yes, that would add some significant costs...
 
The Dynetics Enduring Shield launcher continues to slip and now over a year late, delivery now expected December, Raytheon has commenced delivery of the first of 60 AIM-9X missiles. The problem appears to stem from heat issues created from launching the ground launch variant of the AIM-9X. Thermal management mitigation efforts include the addition of fans within each AIM-9X canister and the addition of solar shielding to the magazine. The Brits avoid the issue with their soft launched CAMM missile and puzzled as to why other similar missiles do not appear to suffer from the thermal launcher problems e.g. Iron Dome, IRIS-T.

Enduring Shield will be tied in with IBCS and its associated radars A3, A4, ALPS, LTAMDS plus Lockheed ’s Remote Interceptor Guidance-360 (RIG–360) system.

https://breakingdefense.com/2023/10...during-shield-launcher-delivery-by-years-end/
 
The thermal management issues were unrelated to launching, rather the issue is with storage. AIM-9X was not designed to be encanistered, and doing so caused the weapon to exceed its thermal limits in extreme heat and direct sunlight. This was a major factor in the original MML being cancelled, and fixing this issue was a major factor in the Dynetics bid being selected.

Systems like CAMM and Iron Dome may well have experienced those issues in early development, but neither the UK or Israel are as transparent with revealing these issues to the public.
 
totallyaverage said:
The thermal management issues were unrelated to launching, rather the issue is with storage. AIM-9X was not designed to be encanistered, and doing so caused the weapon to exceed its thermal limits in extreme heat and direct sunlight. This was a major factor in the original MML being cancelled, and fixing this issue was a major factor in the Dynetics bid being selected.

Systems like CAMM and Iron Dome may well have experienced those issues in early development, but neither the UK or Israel are as transparent with revealing these issues to the public.
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Thanks for your info, much appreciated, begs the question why it appears the AIM-9X IR sensor cannot take extreme heat than either the CAMM or Iron Dome Tamir 2 missiles IR sensors, could it possibly be that the CAMM uses a later gen IR sensor or as you mention neither UK or Israel are transparent in disclosing development problems.
 
Cordy said:
Thanks for your info, much appreciated, begs the question why it appears the AIM-9X IR sensor cannot take extreme heat than either the CAMM or Iron Dome Tamir 2 missiles IR sensors, could it possibly be that the CAMM uses a later gen IR sensor or as you mention neither UK or Israel are transparent in disclosing development problems.
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The issue isn't unique to Sidewinder, every weapon has thermal limitations that have to be considered. Both Iron Dome and LandCeptor canisters include thermal management systems to prevent damage to the weapons. Without protection, temperatures inside such an enclosed container can exceed 60⁰ Celsius, risking damage to many components, particularly electronics.
 
Interesting they didn't go with RIM-116 then, considering the Mk 144 has encapsulated missiles derived from the AIM-9, and especially considering the Army already has experienced with the Mk 15 mount as Centurion. I guess AIM-9X is to try to get the Air Force involved though.
 
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Kat Tsun said:
Interesting they didn't go with RIM-116 then, considering the Mk 144 has encapsulated missiles derived from the AIM-9, and especially considering the Army already has experienced with the Mk 15 mount as Centurion. I guess AIM-9X is to try to get the Air Force involved though.
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Doesn't the AIM-9X have a better seeker than the RIM-116?

Plus, I suspect that there are significantly more AIM-9s being bought than RIM-116s.
 
Kat Tsun said:
Interesting they didn't go with RIM-116 then, considering the Mk 144 has encapsulated missiles derived from the AIM-9, and especially considering the Army already has experienced with the Mk 15 mount as Centurion. I guess AIM-9X is to try to get the Air Force involved though.
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RAM is specifically designed for the anti-ship missiles defense role, land attack missiles were not a consideration in the design process. The weapon is almost entirely dependent on its passive RF seeker to bring the weapon inso acquisition range for the IR seeker. Against non-emitting targets RAM is significantly limited.

RAM was designed this way to limit integration requirements for ships, which is why it doesn't include a weapons link between the ship and weapon. Block 2B integrates a missile to missile link, but not a ship to weapon link. Ultimately, it's a Navy weapon designed for extremely specific Navy requirements, and nothing else.
 
Cordy said:
Thanks for your info, much appreciated, begs the question why it appears the AIM-9X IR sensor cannot take extreme heat than either the CAMM or Iron Dome Tamir 2 missiles IR sensors, could it possibly be that the CAMM uses a later gen IR sensor or as you mention neither UK or Israel are transparent in disclosing development problems.
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Most cannisterized missiles AUR's feature some sort of thermal management in their designs.
 
totallyaverage said:
RAM is specifically designed for the anti-ship missiles defense role, land attack missiles were not a consideration in the design process. The weapon is almost entirely dependent on its passive RF seeker to bring the weapon inso acquisition range for the IR seeker. Against non-emitting targets RAM is significantly limited.

RAM was designed this way to limit integration requirements for ships, which is why it doesn't include a weapons link between the ship and weapon. Block 2B integrates a missile to missile link, but not a ship to weapon link. Ultimately, it's a Navy weapon designed for extremely specific Navy requirements, and nothing else.
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Designed to be the missile equivalent of the Phalanx CIWS, that basically only needs electrical power supplied from the ship.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Designed to be the missile equivalent of the Phalanx CIWS, that basically only needs electrical power supplied from the ship.
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RAM was designed to be integrated directly into the combat systems of the vessel, and was reliant on external radar and ESM cues for a successful engagement. Later improvements deepened the integration, for example using Phalanx engagement radar to provide fine tracking data. SeaRAM came later and in standalone is a less capable system, hence why new ship designs fitted with RAM typically opt for the Mk 49 system. The exception being LCS, which was done either for cost reasons (LCS-2) or data rights disputes (LCS-1).
 
totallyaverage said:
RAM is specifically designed for the anti-ship missiles defense role, land attack missiles were not a consideration in the design process. The weapon is almost entirely dependent on its passive RF seeker to bring the weapon inso acquisition range for the IR seeker. Against non-emitting targets RAM is significantly limited.

RAM was designed this way to limit integration requirements for ships, which is why it doesn't include a weapons link between the ship and weapon. Block 2B integrates a missile to missile link, but not a ship to weapon link. Ultimately, it's a Navy weapon designed for extremely specific Navy requirements, and nothing else.
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The RAM's RF seeker is not sensitive enough to acquire land attack weapons' radar altimeters?

I guess that means any adaptation to land use would be rather more extensive than adapting AIM-9X to containerization, though if it were given a LOAL datalink perhaps it could sidestep the issue.
 
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Kat Tsun said:
The RAM's RF seeker is not sensitive enough to acquire land attack weapons' radar altimeters?

I guess that means any adaptation to land use would be rather more extensive than adapting AIM-9X to containerization though. RIP.
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I don't think this was ever tried. But maybe it can seek that and or datalinks.
 
kqcke for you said:
I don't think this was ever tried. But maybe it can seek that and or datalinks.
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Yeah, I think the main reason AIM-9X is liked is because it's LOAL and presumably can be adapted to Army ICBS datalinking.

Considering RAM is from the '80's, I'm not sure if it even has an FPA seeker or just a very high performance all-aspect InSb detector.

Open question whether adding a datalink to RAM (and adapting the RAM canister for Army equipment) is harder than adding a thermally managed seeker to AIM-9X, or whether a SeaRAM-type launcher based on Mk 15 on a HEMTT might be better than a Enduring Shield/MML-type launcher. I'm not sure anyone could say for sure which is the case, but it's rather odd that thermal management issues sprung up with Dynetics' launcher, given the Army's prior experience with MML. Did anyone at Dynetics bother talking to DA?

I personally like the idea of unified air defense complexes of ground and naval forces, so I'm a big fan of the Centurion C-RAM.
 
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Kat Tsun said:
Yeah, I think the main reason AIM-9X is liked is because it's LOAL and presumably can be adapted to Army ICBS datalinking.

Considering RAM is from the '80's, I'm not sure if it even has an FPA seeker or just a very high performance all-aspect InSb detector.

Open question whether adding a datalink to RAM (and adapting the RAM canister for Army equipment) is harder than adding a thermally managed seeker to AIM-9X, or whether a SeaRAM-type launcher based on Mk 15 on a HEMTT might be better than a Enduring Shield/MML-type launcher. I'm not sure anyone could say for sure which is the case, but it's rather odd that thermal management issues sprung up with Dynetics' launcher, given the Army's prior experience with MML. Did anyone at Dynetics bother talking to DA?
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Why would they do that? (/sarc)


Kat Tsun said:
I personally like the idea of unified air defense complexes of ground and naval forces, so I'm a big fan of the Centurion C-RAM.
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There's some costs that ground defense systems don't need, like saltwater hardening, but I'm highly amused that the Land Phalanx uses the complete naval mount but with army ammunition (self destruct tracers instead of APDS).
 
I think the Mk 144 uses the same pedestal as Mk 15, but I'm not for sure.

Mk 15 Mod. 31 obviously does, so the Army would have maintainers and technical manuals relevant to the RAM launcher, but I guess the cost of integrating RAM into the IBCS combat system and datalinking for LOAL might exceed the cost of AIM-9X getting thermal protection, unless there's some snags in the latter. You'd certainly need to do more flight tests and it would take more time, anyway.

Main thing is not needing to setup a completely new specific training course, just expand an existing one, and that RAM already has thermal management that AIM-9X in the Dynetics ESL and Army MML apparently lack. It doesn't have LOAL datalinking (TIL) though and probably homes in on active radar seeker emissions rather than radar altimeter I guess. So it's a known quantity with respect to the launcher, instead of Enduring Shield/MML's novel canister, unless the Army found the Mk 15 pedestal lacking for some reason. I doubt they compared them though.

To a lesser extent, a ground based system would want to handle laser altimeters anyway, whereas radar altimeters are universal over sea, but I'm pretty sure Kalibr uses a radar, and that sort of thing would be handled by LOAL offboard datalinks anyway.
 
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Kat Tsun said:
The RAM's RF seeker is not sensitive enough to acquire land attack weapons' radar altimeters?

I guess that means any adaptation to land use would be rather more extensive than adapting AIM-9X to containerization, though if it were given a LOAL datalink perhaps it could sidestep the issue.
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No, they are typically too faint to get a reliable track, especially from such small antenna. RAM Block 1 incorporated an IR mode upgrade to allow the weapon to engage non-emitting threats, however range is generally reduced if relying on IR homing all the way.

The original Block 0 IR seeker came from Stinger, Block 1 incorporated a new linear array in the 90s. Block 2A replaced the IR seeker again with a new design, and Block 2B replaces the RF seeker in addition to the missile to missile link. Incorporating a ship to missile link was proposed in the past, but that would require further modifications to the ships' systems as well and was not selected for development.

Kat Tsun said:
Yeah, I think the main reason AIM-9X is liked is because it's LOAL and presumably can be adapted to Army ICBS datalinking.

Considering RAM is from the '80's, I'm not sure if it even has an FPA seeker or just a very high performance all-aspect InSb detector.

Open question whether adding a datalink to RAM (and adapting the RAM canister for Army equipment) is harder than adding a thermally managed seeker to AIM-9X, or whether a SeaRAM-type launcher based on Mk 15 on a HEMTT might be better than a Enduring Shield/MML-type launcher. I'm not sure anyone could say for sure which is the case, but it's rather odd that thermal management issues sprung up with Dynetics' launcher, given the Army's prior experience with MML. Did anyone at Dynetics bother talking to DA?

I personally like the idea of unified air defense complexes of ground and naval forces, so I'm a big fan of the Centurion C-RAM.
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Yeah, AIM-9X is not at all an issue with regards to integration, it talks on the same bands as Sentinel and RIG-360 so it is de facto IBCS compliant. The weapon itself needs very little modification to work with IBCS, most of the work here is being carried by the AUR-M which handles communicating with the launcher.

You have the timeline reversed, thermal management problems were discovered with the original MML design, which contributed to the program's cancellation along with reloading issues. Dynetics's proposal included a redesign to fix that and allow more growth margin, and showed that fix to a limited degree in the IFPC shoot off, but it must still complete all suitability testing which is very thorough.
 
Oh so it's all just fine tuning at this stage, got it.

RIP RAM ship to missile datalink. ):
 
totallyaverage said:
Yeah, AIM-9X is not at all an issue with regards to integration, it talks on the same bands as Sentinel and RIG-360 so it is de facto IBCS compliant. The weapon itself needs very little modification to work with IBCS, most of the work here is being carried by the AUR-M which handles communicating with the launcher.
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Also worth noting that the Army left it to the OEM's to bring about relatively OTS solutions at the shoot off. Raytheon and Leidos chose what it considered the best from a mission set stand point, and from a IBCS and launcher integration stand point. Eventually it was the Tamir and AIM-9X based solution that showed up. Going forward, the bulk of the interceptor buys for IFPC Inc 2 will be the next phase missile which will have to be optimized for supersonic cruise missiles, and large caliber rocket defeat (in addition to subsonic CMs and Group 3 UAS, FW/RW etc) and likely greater keep out range. I don't think RAM is the answer there especially not at its current cost (Army has asked OE's to present proposals around a 10K round inventory). Tamir 2 and perhaps a highly modified AIM-9X could well be in the running. Lockheed Martin has submitted a response so it would be interesting to see what it has brought forward. Army doesn't seem to want to go below its current magazine (6 x 3 per launcher) so you are basically looking at an AIM-9 & Tamir form factor.
 
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In June reported that the Dynetics Enduring Shield launcher for the AIM-9X, IFPC Inc 2 program, had slipped by a year due to thermal problems, now InsideDefense reporting Army saying IFPC Inc 2 suffering at least an 8 months delay before able to field in Guam by 2027.

IFPC Inc 2 suffering delay of at least 8 months; ‘aggressive’ effort to support Guam fielding | InsideDefense.com

The Army project to develop a next-generation cruise missile defense system is facing a delay even as the effort -- called the Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 -- is carrying out what one senior official calls “aggressive activity” to support fielding in Guam by 2027 as part of a...
insidedefense.com insidedefense.com
 
They are having supply chain issues and a few other things pertaining to design changes based on US Army feedback. But it's worth it in the end for it breaks the OEM monopoly and creates a competable system for the Army which is important given the Army would be fielding hundreds of these over the next decade.

I have not read of any thermal issues reported in June though a lot of articles refer to thermal issues with the original MML design which is not the same as the Enduring Shield that Leidos is now building.
 
bring_it_on said:
I have not read of any thermal issues reported in June though a lot of articles refer to thermal issues with the original MML design which is not the same as the Enduring Shield that Leidos is now building.
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Due to the delayed delivery as of June it was yet to be confirmed by Army operational assesssment testing the launcher thermal issues were sorted.

Although the Army’s upcoming test plan will be geared towards ensuring the launcher is interoperable with the lBCS and other components of the Army’s air defense architecture, the service is also looking to ensure that past thermal problems associated with launching the AIM-9X from the ground have been overcome.

“Dynetics and Raytheon have implemented [all-up round magazine] AUR-M design features to mitigate thermal management risks from the ground-launched AIM-9X configuration,” the Army spokesman told Breaking Defense earlier this year. “The design features have successfully completed contractor sub-system level tests and will undergo government system level tests.”
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breakingdefense.com

Army delays IFPC Inc 2 program operational assessment to ‘early’ FY25 - Breaking Defense

Lingering supply chain woes have delayed Dynetics first Enduring Shield launcher prototype delivery to the Army which has, in turn, delayed testing plans.
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com
 
Cordy said:
Due to the delayed delivery as of June it was yet to be confirmed by Army operational assesssment testing the launcher thermal issues were sorted.
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Okay. This launcher design is not the same as the original MML built leveraging parts from HIMARS and other programs. So basically what the article is implying is that it has the potential to delay the Army's assessment of the Enduring shield system against a whole host of performance requirements. To be clear, there are no known issues with the ES design pertaining to thermal management. This was "discovered" with the original MML baseline, and ES was designed with that in mind. There have been SC issues and Leidos has not done as well as a more traditional AD system prime in mitigating them. The Army knows this but its probably worth it in the end since it increases competition in the end in this space which so far has been the domain of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman (IBCS).
 
bring_it_on said:
To be clear, there are no known issues with the ES design pertaining to thermal management.
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Of course there are no known issues with the new launcher's thermal management system as it has yet to be tested (as far as we know), but until the Army completes its trials we won't know, till then just keeping fingers crossed the revised launcher will pass its tests.
 

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