Lethal Layers: Army Wants Land-Based Fires to Play Both Offense, Defense.

• Date: 01 February 2025
• Author: Luckenbaugh, Josh
• Published date: 01 February 2025

ARLINGTON, Virginia--Imagine an Army with common sensors conducting counter-fire and air surveillance almost simultaneously, seamlessly passing targeting data to air defense and field artillery command-and-control systems at machine speed to inform launchers that can fire both offensive and defensive weapons.

That was the vision laid out by Maj. Gen. Winston "Phil" Brooks, commander of the Army Fires Center of Excellence at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, during a recent Association of the United States Army event.

While air defense and field artillery "should and do remain two distinct branches," the future battlefield calls for a "convergence on commonality that will enable the delivery of fires," Brooks said.

Brig. Gen. Rory Crooks, director of Army Futures Command's long-range precision fires cross-functional team, said the service is developing launchers that can fire both offensive and defensive weapons.

The service's five-ton Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher has reached technology readiness level six--meaning the prototype has been verified and demonstrated in a relevant environment--and has the potential to be a common system that can deliver both "preemptive offensive fires" and "defensive reactive fires," or even launched effects beyond traditional munitions, Crooks said during a panel discussion at the event.

The Army is also developing a palletized, 10-ton Objective Launch System that can fire both offensive and defensive weapons. That launcher is at a "very low TRL right now... but it's really promising, and we're going to see what we can do to accelerate it," Crooks said during a media briefing after the event. "To be honest... we're looking to [the office of the secretary of defense] to help us to some extent."

Common autonomous launchers with both offensive and defensive capability will give a commander a vast amount of flexibility, he said.

"If the commander needs [more protection] in this part of the battle, he's going to pull that autonomous system over" to provide defense, he said. "If we scale up our fires, get more offensive as conflict initiates, then you move those autonomous platforms" and load them up with munitions that are "more preemptive or offensive in nature."

"You have the ability to help consolidate gains and move these things depending on where you are in the battle without having to take crews and have them do a different mission. It's just the crew adopting an autonomous platform and taking it over," he said.

As it develops...