What combat helicopters and unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan need in a hurry is an inexpensive, lightweight rocket that can be fired with enough accuracy to guide itself through a window-size target from outside the range of small-arms and light anti-aircraft fire.
The U.S. Navy believes it has the answer in a modified version of an unguided, Vietnam War-era rocket. The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) II has already hit a basketball-size target at a range of 5 km (3 mi.).
BAE Systems intends to deliver the next batch of its low-rate-production APKWS directly to the U.S. Marine Corps for shipment to operational units. The first 325 missiles had completed delivery to the Navy in December, and the second lot of 600 will be dispatched in early fiscal 2012. With the end of operational testing in January, a full-rate-production decision for 1,000 missiles a year is expected to follow soon.
There is a rapid-deployment effort to arm the MQ-8B Fire Scout rotary-wing unmanned aerial system (UAS).
“APKWS is what we plan to put on [the MQ-8B] in the near future,” says Navy Capt. Brian Corey, program manager for the missile. “We expect that to be the Navy Department’s first armed UAS. We could put a three-tube launcher on each of the two stations on a Fire Scout for a total of six rounds. The number of rounds actually on board depends on what other payloads are carried and the length of the mission.”
Source: Aviation Week