Finally, an anti-mortar weapons system has been deployed to the sandbox.
Glad to have it, but given the venerable age of the Phalanx system from which it was developed, one has to wonder what took so long.
C-RAM will uses target acquisition sensors, including Northrop Grumman's AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radar and the Lightweight Counter Mortar Radar, to detect and track fired rounds. Once a threat is detected, audio and visual alarms sound to warn exposed soldiers. Meanwhile, the fire-control subsystem predicts the mortar's flight path, prioritizes targets, activates the warning system, and provides cueing data to target the mortar round while still in the air.
The fire-control subsystem Northrop Grumman Mission Systems provides for C-RAM uses software modified from FAAD C2 (Forward Area Air Defense, Command & Control), which ties together the sensors and weapons of the Army's short-range air-defense battalions. FAAD C2 is operational throughout the world, including homeland security efforts in the Washington, DC area.
This appears to be a spiral development contract, with fielding of interim solutions as development progresses. The company will first deploy a mortar-attack warning capability, and install that capability at eight forward operating bases in Iraq. Northrop Grumman Mission Systems will also train soldiers to use the system, and will integrate an intercept subsystem as it is fielded.
The contract is managed by the Director, Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar in the Army's Program Executive Office: Command Control and Communications Tactical. See corporate release.
For me, some of the greatest stories of WWII were of the incredible industrial development backing up our troops, the Liberty ships, the navy, and an air force practically over night practically from scratch. Given advances in industrial systems, I find it impossible to fathom why it takes the modern military so damn long to procure new good stuff. I hope our new Sec Def Gates can reform this procedure, and fast. The modern Pentagon functions more like the old bureau of torpedoes than like the Skunk Works, and that's just wrong.
And if you want to learn about an unbelievable bureaucratic scandal, read up on our torpedo development (or lack thereof) during WWII.
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