Decision time: Army nears deadline for long-range precision munition acquisition plan

WASHINGTON — A key decision on the Army’s future helicopter-launched, long-range precision munition will be made in the coming weeks, the service tells Breaking Defense.

Army leaders have been looking for longer-range weapons to fire off its Apache fleet for several years, and are currently acquiring an interim solution — the Spike Non-Line-Of-Sight missile system (NLOS) produced by Israel’s Rafael and Lockheed Martin. But the service is also conducting a follow-on acquisition program, and hosted a “shoot-off” in 2022 for three vendors — which the Army hasn’t identified — to show off their weapons and help determine future weapon requirements.

Despite last week’s massive aviation shakeup that included the demise of one potential manned helo for such weapons, the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), a Program Executive Office Aviation spokesperson confirmed to Breaking Defense that Army leaders are still poised to weigh in on that future follow-on program.

By the end of March, the Army Requirements Oversight Council (AROC) is slated to meet on the formal program of record and hash out “acquisition decisions,” they said, while noting that a “variety” of Army aviation platform could be considered options.

If service officials decide to greenlight a program, things could kick off this fiscal year if Congress passes the fiscal 2024 spending bill, which includes some funding for the effort, with procurement planned for FY27. That budget request has been stalled on Capitol Hill for the past four months.

“The [long-range precision munition] LRPM will provide Army aviation with improved and longer range weapons, sub-systems, and munitions that can rapidly respond in a combat environment improving the survivability of the warfighters and weapon systems in an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) denied environment,” the service wrote in budget documents. “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 (AAWSSM) program.”

As the program office and industry wait to see what Army leaders decide to do with a formal program, it’s full steam ahead for the interim solution, the Spike NLOS, with plans to meet the first unit equipped milestone by the end of August. 

Back in December, Lockheed announced that over five days, it “successfully” fired eight Spike NLOS rounds from AH-64E Apache V6 at Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona.

“The successful live fire event clears the Spike NLOS Long Range Precision Munitions directed requirement (LRPM DR) system for airworthiness release for the US Apache platform, which paves the way for starting to equip the system onto the US Army’s current Apache V6 platforms,” the company wrote.

Now that live fire airworthiness qualification and developmental testing is nearly complete, the service anticipates receiving Spike equipment over the next few months in order to meet the August first unit equipped fielding date, the Army spokesperson said. Then by the end of December, 18 aircraft should be able to launch Spike NLOS.

“Missile manufacturing is ongoing with missile deliveries to begin in July 2024 and complete in 2025,” they added. “Final missile delivery will constitute achievement of the full operational capability under the Spike NLOS directed requirement as the Army’s interim solution for a Long-Range Precision Munition.”

However, the development for Spike NLOS in this interim period doesn’t appear to be factored into the final decision on a formal program of record. The spokesperson said that “due to the competitive nature of the follow-on program,” interim program information “is not being considered at this time.”