US wants a new remote operating system for its ground combat vehicle cannons

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Soldiers assigned to the 16th Engineer Battalion, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, make their way to the brigade-level Iron Focus training exercise at the Orogrande Range Complex, N.M. A new remote firing platform would improve their controls for firing while protected. (Army)


The Army is looking for information on a remote weapons system and an unmanned turret for its 30mm cannon for a few of its ground vehicles.


The post on the federal business opportunities website, fbo.gov, is asking industry for information on a system that will need to operate both the 30mm cannon and a 7.62 machine gun aboard a “medium sized combat vehicleplatform” such as the Stryker, M113 and the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle.


It must also have a thermal camera with 70 percent identification of targets the size of a NATO vehicle to a range of 4 km or more.


The M113 Armored Personnel Carrier is still in service after being fielded in the early 1960s. It is being replaced by the AMPV, which received funding for low rate initial production in February. The Army expects to begin fielding two brigades’ worth of AMPVs, or 258 vehicles, by 2020.


Over the past few years the Army has “up gunned” its Strykers for the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Europe as a way to meet concerns of overmatch against Russia ground combat formations. To do that the Army added the 30mm cannon to the platform instead of the twin M2 .50 caliber machine guns.


That version is called a Stryker-Dragoon.

Soldiers from 4th Squadron, 9th U.S. Cavalry Regiment "Dark Horse," 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, drive through a low-water crossing in the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) after completing field testing on Fort Hood, Texas. A new remote firing system could help AMPV crews use weapons more effectively while protected. (Maj. Carson Petry/Army)


The advantage means greater range, out to 9,000 feet, for the 30mm cannon and a variety of other munitions options such as warheads that can achieve point detonation, point detonation delay and airburst effects with different fusing.


Once finished, the 81 Stryker-Dragoons will make up half the vehicles in the regiment’s rifle and scout platoons.


The existing turret uses a sensor suite that includes a thermal camera, day camera and laser rangefinder.


Another Stryker version uses the Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station to launch the Javelin anti-tank missile, which used to require a soldier dismount the Stryker to target other threats with a shoulder-fired missile.


During testing in Europe last year, crews noted that both the Stryker CROWS-J and the Stryker-Dragoons saw select capabilities degraded by adversaries when operating in a cyber contested environment, according to a report. But, officials noted that the vulnerabilities exploited by adversaries predated the upgrades of the CROWS-J and Dragoon variants.

Soldiers assigned to 1st Cavalry Division patrol a region in an M113 armored personnel carrier as part of operations during exercise Combined Resolve XI at Hohenfels Training Area, Germany. A remote firing system being explored could give soldiers a better, protected firing option from such a vehicle (Matthew. J. Marcellus/Army)