The Army has selected a BAE Systems’ electronic countermeasure capability for future evaluations after a successful demonstration at a soft-kill “rodeo” last fall, with plans to evaluate the system on a Bradley fighting vehicle during a layered active protection system test this summer.
BAE Systems’ RAVEN jammer advances in the Army’s soft-kill program over Northrop Grumman’s [NOC] Multifunction Electro-Optical System and Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] offering, the Color Light Operational Unit for Deflection capability originally developed by Israel’s Ariel Photonics Group.
“This event marked a watershed moment for the soft-kill capability area and the Modular Active Protection System (MAPS) program,” Jason Morse, leader for the Army research center’s electronic defeat team, said in a statement. “The rodeo proved the high potential of soft kill countermeasures to protect our Soldiers and platforms from broadly proliferated and lethal threats.”
MAPS is the Army’s program to find a long-term anti-tank missile capability for its vehicles.
The demonstration rodeo was held at the Redstone Test Center in Huntsville, Alabama over six weeks last fall, where all three soft-kill electronic countermeasure systems were tested to see how they take down anti-tank guided missiles.
“Data collected during the soft-kill rodeo was analyzed and resulted in the recommendation to integrate BAE Systems’ RAVEN countermeasure onto a Bradley Fighting Vehicle for the layered demonstrator scheduled for summer 2019,” Army officials wrote in a statement.
The next test for RAVEN will be to see how the system performs when integrated on a Bradley alongside the hard-kill Iron Fist active protection system during tests this summer.
The Army hasn’t committed to buying RAVEN, but officials noted a selection for a soft-kill capability will be made from data collected at the recent rodeo and information as a result of an upcoming source selection opportunity.