SIDEBAR

March 2006

Army to Equip Helos With ‘Low Cost’ Munitions

The Army soon may begin arming its combat helicopters with an undersized missile that could surgically destroy targets in urban areas without killing or maiming friendly forces or innocent civilians.

All through the counterinsurgency in Iraq during the past three years, military officials have acknowledged that, in most cases, the munitions that fighter jets, bombers and helicopters deliver often are too large and too destructive to be effective in a conflict where the goal is to defeat isolated pockets of entrenched insurgents without striking friendly troops and civilian bystanders.

Even ground-based artillery has limited use, as it delivers devastating firepower and rounds often miss the target.

“You don’t want to be imprecise in an urban environment,” says Gen. William Wallace, head of the Army Training and Doctrine Command and a former field commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.

Many of the Army’s helicopters hunting insurgents in Iraqi cities carry Hellfire missiles, which can cause “significant collateral damage” if the intended target is a “soft” unarmored vehicle or a small group of individuals huddled inside a building, says Matt Finley, a retired Army artillery officer.

Another option is cannon fire, but that requires helicopters equipped with 30 mm guns to fly close to the ground, and exposes them to surface fire.

So far the Army has lacked an in-between weapon that is less destructive than a 7-inch Hellfire missile but can be precisely guided to the target with a laser pointer, and keeps pilots at a relatively safe standoff range.

“The Army does not have a high-precision, low-collateral, low-cost weapon that it can use against lower value targets,” says Steve Barnoske, director for tactical missiles at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control.

The proposed solution is an unguided 2.75-inch rocket outfitted with a laser kit. The Army already buys and stockpiles thousands of the 2.75-inch Hydra rockets, and is seeking to equip as many as 73,000 with the laser kits, under a program called “advanced precision kill weapon system,” or APKWS. The Navy would purchase 8,000 for Marine Corps helicopters.

The weapons would be compatible with all Army and Marine Corps combat helicopters. The Army has no plans currently to install these rockets on unmanned aircraft.

“A rocket is a very good tool … to kill a soft-skin vehicle, or to take out one room in a building,” says Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Mundt, director of Army aviation. Rockets currently are used as “area suppression weapons” as they are far from precise, Mundt says. The laser-seekers will turn these rockets into low-cost precision weapons, he adds.

Whereas the Hellfire has a warhead with nearly 20 pounds of explosives, the Hydra warhead is half that size.

The Army told contractors bidding for the APKWS project that the price of each weapon should not exceed $10,000. By comparison, Hellfire missiles cost between $100,000 and $150,000 a piece.

“It has to be low cost,” Mundt tells National Defense. “If it’s going to cost as much as a Hellfire, I might as well fire the Hellfire.”

Contractors assert that the $10,000 price tag is attainable, but the Army would have to commit to sizeable production runs. “A unit cost of less than $10K will be difficult to achieve unless the Army commits to buying them in large quantities,” says Finley.

Further, the program has a troubled history. The Army first attempted to build laser-guided Hydra rockets five years ago, and awarded a contract to General Dynamics. But in early 2005, the Army stopped funding the project, alleging cost overruns and performance shortfalls. A spokesman for General Dynamics says that company officials were “puzzled” by the Army’s decision, and that the program was “performing according to the terms of the contract.”

Industry sources outside General Dynamics say the Army ended the program because the unit cost of the APKWS was exceeding $40,000.

In mid-2005, the Army decided to start over, and issued a new solicitation for industry bids.

Competitors in this second iteration of APKWS include major weapon manufacturers Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems. General Dynamics manufactures the unguided Hydra rockets.

A spokesman for the Army’s Redstone Arsenal, Ala., says a contract award is scheduled for April 2006. The winning contractor will have two years to get the system ready for use in combat.

—Sandra I. Erwin

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