NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – BAE Systems is looking to couple two systems already in the fleet– its Mk 38 gun and Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS)–to create an all-in-one surface warfare weapon delivery system for small navies and ships facing swarm threats.
The company put the pairing on display at the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space conference, hoping to intrigue the U.S. Navy and international navies in attendance. Bob Novak, vice president of Navy programs for the electronics systems division, said the combo was relatively simple: the APKWS needs a 28-volt direct current pulse to fire the rocket, and the Mk 38 gun can generate that power and is designed to accept several weapon attachments.
“Is it wired for that today? No. Is it a concept? Yes. Is anyone paying for it? No. But it’s an idea, we think it’s got some promise,” he said. He said BAE does not have any money set aside for testing today, but if there was enough interest from customers, the company could go beyond drawings and engineering and put a functional integrated system out for testing.
Novak said the combination would create a multilayer defense, where the gun could address closer targets and the rocket could hit ones farther out. The APKWS, during airborne testing with the Navy, has proven successful against small boats and floating mines, among other targets, he said.
The APKWS is a laser-guided rocket kit, and if the launcher were attached to the Mk 38, the laser designation could be done by a nearby helicopter, a laser attached to the ship’s mast or even the laser in the upgraded Mk 38 optics package included in the newer guns being delivered.
Novak said the company philosophy behind this pairing is “just trying to integrate something together, efficient, something that’s already qualified for shipboard use, a very basic rocket that we think has promise.”
Charlie McCullough, director of maritime business development in the land and armaments division, said that this combination is the most recent in a line of ideas from BAE.
“The way the Mk 38 is designed, you have that takeoff axel that you can mount whatever you want on it,” he said. “So we’ve shown the laser [gun with
Boeing], we’ve shown now the rockets, we have a coaxial self-defense gun that can go on the side there.”
McCullough said the idea is not to tell the Navy what to buy but rather to show them what is possible so officials can decide what, if any, combinations make sense for their missions and threat sets. He noted that a key selling point for the company is that the hard work of testing and certifying the underlying gun system has already been accomplished, making the rest of the engineering and testing less extensive and expensive in comparison.
“When you create a new system into the fleet, you have to find real estate onboard, you have to do all the testing, so this is a fast way to get this capability to the fleet on how many platforms? It’s all over the place–Mk 38 is pretty much on every platform. You could bring good capability, longer range anti-surface to the fleet in a very short time period,” he said.