The system, called Quick Kill and developed by Raytheon (McKinney, TX), is a new hit-avoidance system, designed to protect combat vehicles from RPGs at close range. To detect and track incoming RPGs, it employs an active electronically scanned array (AESA) called that Cobra radar, derived from the Multi-Function Radio-Frequency (MF-RF) sensor that the company is developing for the US Army's Future Combat System (FCS) program (see "
New Sensors for FCS Ground Vehicles"). The Cobra radar can detect and track several threats at once and provides targeting data (i.e., speed, trajectory, and intercept point) and cueing for a precision-launched weapon (about 20 inches long and 3.5 inches in diameter) to destroy the RPG in mid-flight with a focused-blast warhead. All of this – from detection to launch and defeat of the RPG – takes place "in less than the blink of an eye," according to Johnny Garrett, director of Raytheon Integrated Systems.
The precision-launched weapon employs a technique called "soft launch," whereby it launches vertically from the vehicle, pitches over, and is propelled by its rocket motor to the point of intercept with the RPG, at which point it fires its warhead. This method provides a combat vehicle with full hemispheric protection from a single system, rather than placing a number of them around the sides of the vehicle. It also avoids the concussion and stress that a more traditional launch method would put on the vehicle.
In addition, a vehicle equipped with the Quick Kill system would typically carry eight to 16 such rounds that could be launched in a salvo to counter multiple RPG attacks.
During the recent testing, an RPG was launched at close range – well within 50 m, Garrett said – to simulate an attack against a Stryker vehicle equipped with the Quick Kill system. The Cobra radar successfully detected, tracked, and cued the precision-launched weapon, which then launched and destroyed the incoming projectile. Further testing is planned for the April-May timeframe.
Up to this point, since August of last year, Raytheon has been developing the Quick Kill system using internal research and development (IRAD) funds, but Garrett said that the company anticipates a contract award this spring. This would most likely be an FCS-related award, he said, for further development of the system and fielding with the US Army's Stryker force under the FCS program's "spin-out" plan to get new technologies, including an active protection system for combat vehicles, to the current force more quickly (see "
US Army FCS Spin-Out Plan Detailed"). According to Garrett, the Quick Kill system could be fieldable in a relatively short period of time, about 18 months or so.
The ability to field such a system rapidly is critical in order to deal with the threat posed by RPGs to US forces in such places as Iraq and Afghanistan, which Garrett called "an important problem and a gap that has to be closed." Indeed, RPGs have posed such a threat to Strykers in particular that the US Army was forced to provide them with slat armor – a cage-like series of metal bands that encircles the vehicle for added protection – but the armor also weighs down the Strykers, which are supposed to be fast and mobile. Garrett said that once soldiers become comfortable with the Quick Kill system and gain more confidence in it, the Army may eventually decide to remove the slat armor altogether and instead rely solely upon the Quick Kill system, which weighs under 300 lbs., as opposed to the approximately 5,000-lb. slat armor.
In addition to ground vehicles, Garrett said the Quick Kill system could also protect fixed sites and helicopters. He noted that the soft-launch technique would be particularly attractive to Army aviation. US and coalition helicopters have been targeted a number of times by insurgent forces in Iraq using RPGs (see "
Choppers on the Crosshairs in Iraq" and "
Targets of Opportunity") and came face to face with the RPG threat during combat in Afghanistan (see "
Choppers in the Coils").
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The Quick Kill system, a new device to protect combat vehicles from rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), was recently demonstrated. The 300-lb. system could eventually replace the 5,000 lbs. of slat armor that currently protect the US Army's Stryker vehicles (seen here).
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09-03-2005, 01:29
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