Home Americas US Army seeks candidates for Long Range Precision Munition shoot off in...

US Army seeks candidates for Long Range Precision Munition shoot off in 2022

Apache with Hellfire missile
Illustration: US Army soldiers load an AGM-114 Hellfire missile on an AH-64E Apache helicopter in Afghanistan in 2017.

The US Army has issued a request for information to interested companies for a Long Range Precision Munition (LRPM) shoot off that would take place in 2022.

The event would inform the service’s acquisition long range precision munition for both current and future helicopters.

The shoot-off is taking place after the service ordered Rafael’s Spike missile as an interim solution in early 2020.

According to the RFI, the demonstration event will be a critical element of the acquisition strategy to procure and field LRPM. The proposed solutions will be launched from a government-supplied ground-based launchers and will be evaluated in multiple scenarios to evaluate the system against test objectives.

Following the shoot-off, the service expects to issue a request for whitepapers by early 2023.

LRPM will provide the Army with a long range munition system that will improve the lethality and survivability of warfighters and weapon systems in an anti-access/area denial and positioning, navigation, and timing denied environment.

The ability to interoperate and coordinate with other weapon systems and munitions at long ranges and adapt to changing threats is a core concept of the Army Aviation Weapons, Sub-Systems, and Munitions Initial Capabilities Document validated in June 2018. The service has placed great emphasis on the system using a modular open system architecture (MOSA) to facilitate a reduction of costs and rapid development. The importance of MOSA cannot be overstated as candidate systems must be capable of being quickly upgraded, by sources that may be independent of the original developer, to adapt to changing operational threats.

The selected LRPM will equip the Army’s two future helicopters being developed as part of the US Army’s future vertical lift (FVL) ecosystem. The two manned helicopters are being selected under the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) and the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) competitions.