On a conference call earlier this week with Army Maj. Gen. Keith Walker, the service’s Future Force Integration Directorate Commander, I asked him about the crappy performance of the Non Line-of-Sight Launch System’s (NLOS-LS) Precision Attack Missile. The not very precise missile only went two for six in recent limited user live fire tests out at White Sands; the hits only came when it used its laser designator instead of the infrared seeker, which is kind of cheating (laser designated rounds have been around for a long time).
Walker, who is in charge of getting all of the former bits and pieces of technology that fell out of the FCS cancellation integrated into the future force, was none too pleased about the NLOS-LS tests; he was there to witness the misses first hand. “It’s a significant impact, obviously,” he said.
I asked Walker how much patience the Army has with Raytheon’s missile builders. “It depends on what went wrong, if it’s a matter of the switch was set to A instead of B, then that’s just turning the switch. It’s likely at this point in the evaluation that it’s a bit more complicated than that.”
The Army lacks an “easily deployable guided missile system,” he said, but, there is a cost versus benefit issue with the NLOS-LS; the missiles reportedly cost $466,000 a piece. Once the guidance malfunction is identified, then “we can figure out what it would take to fix it. Then the Army’s got the decision: Okay, do we modify the program? Do we cancel the program? Or do we continue?”
The Army is having a tough time even figuring out how the NLOS-LS would fit into its precision fires world because it has yet to perform as advertised, he said.
{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
Too bad this didn't work. Hopefully they fix it. Regardless of whether NLOS-LS survives, the missiles-in-a-box concept is too useful to abandon. They need to keep at it until they get the cost down and the reliability up.
GAWD! I thought the Javelin cost a few body parts but this is completely stupid. Bring down the price or it'll go the way of FCS, the Commanche and all the other white elephants.
I recall reading somewhere that the Raytheon SDB II candidate IR seeker was based on the NLOS-LS technology.
True or false?
If true, this might portend the USAF is flying into another shit-storm. (Advantage – Boeing. Maybe this is part of a future payback compensating for award of the KC-X to NG/EADS?) :)
Good Evening Folks,
I have been a fan of this concept since the 1960′s when it was first proposed using TOWs, it seems like a good idea and a way to get on call indirect fire support to the rifle platoon/squad. But that appears not the case.
Two problems, one is accuracy, which I assume is a tech problem and throughly solvable the second is most likely not, that is the price of $466K it is way to expensive for the use that this weapon was originally intended, to back up the rifle platoon. Even at a cost of around dropped to $25K it would be to expensive for the kinds of targets that a rifle platoon or company for that matter encounters such as a sniper or a small ambush.
In the mean time during the 40 years it’s taken to get the NLOS-LS into the field the Army has moved ahead and found and fielded an excellent weapon in the 120mm mortar that is mobile and cheap enough to deploy with a platoon. With the fielding of GPS guided mortar rounds this will be more then a replacement for the NLOS-LS.
It’s time to put and end to what a long time ago seemed to be a game changer, now it’s really not even in the game.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Are you talking about dragon or whatever the automated mortar system? Because i think the Real reason ther army wants this so much is that they can lay out a box or 3 and have the order just relayed which cuts down on man power and logistics.
I agree a good mortar could be used but accuracy is still a big problem.
Don't know about the 120 being exactly portable for a platoon mission. The 81 is barely portable. I say come up with some laser guided rounds for the 60 and 81, and give squad leaders designators. This is coming from a former 11 charlie so I am both informed about and biased towards my weapon system
Is this a new version of FOG-M? Didn't that work – but no one wanted it?
why cant they just take a bunch of javelin and put em in the box? the javelin is already accurate. add a radio to the clu and the info is transmitted to the box and the javelin is on its way. y reinvent everything?
The Javelin is 100k+ a shot… it's designed to take out tanks, not buildings or massed troops. 100k Javelin takes out a million dollar tank, is one thing but a 100k javelin taking out a 10 buck mud hut is stupid.
But these missiles are $466K a shot to take out a mud hut.
i wonder if the chinese have the same amount of defense "challenges". It now looks like the us is messing up its procurement, but what about russia, china and india. my guess is they have at least as much junk, but less press coverage.
Chances are Russia and China have worse challenges, they just have tighter control of information and minimal if any free press. So we rarely get to hear about it.
What platforms are IR-seekers currently used in? Just curious. We have a slew of GPS-guided weapons for the air force and now Excalibur, but I don't remember if Javelin uses IR-based guidance. If anything, I recall most of it is the USAF, such as the Sidewinder? (which interestingly enough is one of the prime contractors). Northrop fails?
Blight, Yes the Javelin uses an IR seeker. The reason for not utilizing GPS guidance is the fact that GPS guidance cannot hit a moving target. It is used for stationary targets.
the Javelin uses an imaging IR seeker, the difference is that the gunner tells the Javelin which IR signature to lock-on to, as does the Sidewinder. The NLOS-LS is supposed to be fired into a general area, up to 40km from it's launcher, and then it has to acquire it's target on its's own when in autonomous imaging infrared mode. The NLOS-LS does have a GPS/INS attack mode, as well as laser homing (someone lases the target). Given it's smaller warhead, GPS/INS is only marginally effective. From what I understand the missile has been effective in the laser homing mode, but, Day/Night capable laser designators haven't been that "man-portable". The AN/PAQ-1 weighs 16 lbs, but you have to add some type of night vision scope to make it Day/Night effective, so you are limited to the effective range of the scope added. The AN/PED-1 Lightweight Laser Designator Rangefinder busts the scales at 35lbs, including it's tripod which is needed to actually use the thing effectively.
Did anyone read how it missed one target by 25km? I would have loved to have seen that shot take place and try not to laugh as the Northrop Contractors have all color leaving their faces on that and the military officers present going "where in the hell did that one go?"
Having been present for one of those spit storms,( onboard a sub coming out of Newport News Shipyard which dived to periscope at which time the ducttape over a hole in the pressure hull let go) i would venture a guess that the contractor was none too happy with what the Army had to say. I wonder if his clothes are still smoking from the blistering critique of his product ?
Raytheon is the same company that helped the Chinese PLA correct their ICBM guidance system. Someday we may find out how well they did that task.
Maybe that was the real trick of it. Maybe they "helped" them like they're helping this.
It would be cool to see if the laucher were the same design as the launcher used by patriot missiles.
Considering the picture in the article shows a NLOS-LS launcher, I would say no, it is not the same launcher used by the Patriot missile
I'd be more tolerant of a $466,000 per missile price if delivering ordinance to targets from a distance wasn't something that the U.S. military as a whole is already very good at doing at a lower price. At $4,660 per missile, Army controlled ground based NLOS launchers make all sorts of sense; at $466,000 per missile, smart bombs deployed from planes and missles deployed from drones start looking like pretty attractive alternatives.
Do we really need to pay five times as much per missile as the alternatives just because we can't seem to get the Air Force and the Army to cooperate? Our money would be better spent in strengthening unified command structures at the expense of service based chains of command. It isn't as if there isn't proof of concept for bureacratic solutions to what aren't fundamentally technologal problems. Nobody complains that the unified air-land command structure of the Marines is a problem.
Reference: the Guided MLRS (range: 80+km at last test, GPS/INS guided with planned upgrades to SAL terminal guidance and a 196lb unitary warhead) costs about $110,000 per M31 rocket (all costs included, according to the last budgetary figures for the USMC and Army). 6 go on a truck (HIMARS system) that is readily air transportable.
There was a smaller version in the works, the P44, under Lockheed Martin. Ranged out to 70km and 10 could fit in the place of 6 M31s. They were going to bear a 28lb MAC warhead (from the Hellfire II) and were supposed to have a tri-mode seeker (SAL/MMW/IIRC terminal with GPS/INS general guidance). It was apparently rolled into the NLOS program, to apparently limited effect.
Ok this money actually goes into someones pocket or somewhere else.
Look at that metal tube and kalium red flame.. :) :)
Put the blame for these failures where it belongs.
The School system. We teach them nothing, require nothing and then have to hire people from other countries to design our equipment.
Graduate Electrical engineers who don't know ohm's law designing electronic guidance systems and then we wonder why they don't work.
We can't blame the school systems if they don't get money. Cuts in education are the first thing to go, esp here in FL. Old retired people don't want to pay for other's education. Not one for large govt., but the states are doing a poor job of making sure our country has large talent pool to choose from for engineering and science. Either federalize or privatize and get rid of HYT.
There is something to be said for ruthlessly cutting the program, not because it has no hope, but because it will scare contractors on other programs shitless. We can start over from scratch if need be. Technology doesn't get more expensive over time and this isn't a huge program yet.
Wait $466,666 for a missile a piece? There is something wrong with the math. Check the math. Taliban get that for $ 1,000 a piece in Pakistan and Iran. The Feds should look into that math.
And maybe $ 460 a piece in China w/ no guarantees
Garbage, that's all I have to say from first hand experience testing these things.