Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] Direct Attack Guided Rocket (DAGR) has added a new component to the system: a pedestal, which allows the missile to be fired from a variety of platforms, not just helicopters, company official said.
“What makes it attractive is that it gives an attack helicopter capability to positions on the ground and at sea,” Mike Dowty, business development lead, DAGR program for Lockheed Martin, said.
The pedestal mount has launcher rails and can track in azimuth and elevation to fire DAGR and other missiles from ships, boats, and ground vehicles, he said. It enables DAGR and other air-to-ground missiles to be used in the surface-to-surface and potentially surface-to-air role.
Lockheed Martin has a pedestal on display here at Modern Day Marine, and is expected to display a pedestal mounted on a JLTV at the Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting in October in Washington.
“The pedestal has…the potential to be fielded remotely and operated over a network,” Dowty said. In the future, the DAGR pedestal could potentially be used on unmanned systems, watercraft or ground vehicles, such as the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, or the Marine’s future personnel carrier, now in competition, or even put in a static position, for example, to protect a forward operating base.
DAGR has conducted flight tests most recently with relatively simple flight profiles as part of its work for a government customer, and thus Lockheed Martin was able to leverage those tests to do an initial test of a pedestal launch system.
The 355-pound pedestal holds four missile rails and comes directly from the M299 missile launcher, originally designed for the AH-64 Apache helicopter. The launcher is in use in 15 countries on a wide variety of rotary wing aircraft and on some light fixed wing aircraft.
The launcher system has been put on a pedestal. The Norwegians and Swedes have used it on boats, which enables missiles such as Hellfire and JAGM to be used for other missions, Dowty said.
The pedestal uses mature, existing components that are the military inventory. It’s all proven equipment the company is using in a new way and making sure it operates as advertised, Dowty said.
No real changes have been made to the missile to fire it from a pedestal, Dowty said. The same basic design remains and, as with any other developmental item, there have been minor modifications.
It doesn’t matter if the missile is fired from the air or from the ground, he said. The basic specifications are the same. What would be different would be how the launcher is aimed or stabilized.
Dowty said there are a broad set of possibilities and different areas where Lockheed Martin would like to demonstrate pedestal launch next year, primarily in a defensive lethal capability for a number of different customers. DAGR on a pedestal could also counter emerging threats as an asymmetrical warfare defensive system.
Mounting the pedestal on a vehicle would require a fit check and concept demonstration. One of the simplest possibilities is to mount it on a towed trailer. The system is transportable and can be made semi-permanent, for example, by bolting it to a platform, pier, mountain top position or any perimeter.
Regardless of whether it’s fired from a helicopter or a pedestal, the laser-guided DAGR missile is performing as expected. The 2.75-inch/70 millimeter DAGR is a precision strike, multi-role and multi-platform munition that hits the target, keeping other damage to personnel or infrastructure to a minimum.
DAGR has proven itself in over 30 successful guided flights, launched from such rotary-wing platforms as the Apache, AH-6 Little Bird and OH-58 Kiowa Warrior. Every DAGR target strike has hit within 1 meter of the laser-designated aimpoint.