By Ann Roosevelt

Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) and High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) programs and the Army are the recipients of the William J. Perry Award for Precision Strike for outstanding combat effectiveness, as well as the programs’ recent in-theater performance and paths forward.

“We are very humbled by our selection for this award, and moreover we are very proud I believe to be the first Army recipient of this precision award,” said Col. David Rice, project manager for Precision Fires Rockets & Missile Systems, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., during a teleconference Wednesday.

The Guided MLRS was sent to the theater more than two years ago in response to a commander’s urgent need statement.

“I believe as of today the amount of Guided MLRS used in theater stands at just over 550 rockets,” Rice said. Of those 550 rockets, 310 have been used since July. During the surge, they were the weapon of choice.

Jim Gribschaw, Lockheed Martin Precision Fires Program director, said the company is not only proud to be part of the first Army team to receive the award, but importantly the programs are “providing close support with a precision system to our soldiers and marines in the field and our coalition partners.”

For example, the United Kingdom is using the system extensively.

Col. Gary Kinne, Army Training and Doctrine Command Capability Manager, Rockets and Missiles at Fort Sill, Okla., said the GMLRS are used in Afghanistan and Iraq against high value targets and against known IED facilities–where the IEDs are built or stored.

GMLRS can be fired from the wheeled HIMARS vehicle or the M270A1 tracked platform. The United Kingdom uses a M270B1 platform. GMLRS can be fired in a stand-alone role, depending on the commander’s desired effect, and potential for collateral damage, or can, and has, been used in conjunction with air-delivered munitions.

Feedback from the field has been ‘phenomenal, Kinne said. “Guided MLRS has revolutionized the role of the field artillery into the urban fight. The reason I say that is we can now take a rocket, shoot it up to 70 km and put it precisely on a target, while at the same time absolutely minimizing collateral damage. The soldiers have high confidence, they use it routinely and they are able to employ this munition in relatively close proximity to where they’re located in the battlefield. And not too long ago they could not bring rocket and missile fire too close to their location.”

Thus, commanders now can continue to maneuver while GMLRS is firing. “As a user we say that the Guided MLRS and the great HIMARS and M270A launch platform enables the commander, gives him a very persistent, responsive, all-weather, long-range, precision surface-to-surface fires capability,” Kinne said.

Gribshaw said Kinne has told him soldiers and Marines sometimes call GMLRS the “70 kilometer sniper rifle.”

Guided MLRS has put the field artillery back in the urban fight, the predominant fight and threat today, and with precision, Kinne said.

Lockheed Martin Dec. 27 was awarded the third full rate production contract for GMLRS and HIMARS vehicles. The FRP contract A $245.5 million firm-fixed price contract was awarded for GMLRS to be completed in November 2010; and a $266 million contract for HIMARS launchers, maintenance, tooling, training and associated data reporting to be completed by March 30, 2010.

Under the Guided MLRS, the Army’s total acquisition objective is just over 43,000 total rockets, Rice said. The HIMARS acquisition objective is 375 vehicles.

Under FRP 3, some 3,000-4,000 rockets will be acquired and 95 HIMARS platforms will be procured, including 57 for the U.S. Army and the balance for foreign customers, Rice said. “We are funded at least through the POM for that.”

We want to ramp up to approximately 5,000-6,000 rockets per year, he said. Production is slated to end in 2020.

Additionally, the GMLRS program is looking at the Alternative Warhead program, which seeks to eliminate problems created in the field by unexploded munitions from cluster munitions. After extensive analysis and some 19 candidates winnowed down to four, the office has found that kinetic energy rods seem to get the effect on area targets that the users are asking for. Kinne’s office is taking the results of all the analysis and looking at the effects on target combined with the number of rockets required to get those effects.

Rice said Kinne has asked the project office to procure 43,000 GMLRS rockets in the ratio of 80 percent unitary, 20 percent dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM). “What we would seek to do under the Alternative Warhead program cut that into production in the FY ’10 or FY ’11 time period, for the remaining balance of DPICM numbers,” Rice said.

The William J. Perry award will be presented Jan. 23 at a meeting of the Precision Strike Association in Virginia.