The Army is prototyping the land-based, ground launched Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) that will provide residual combat capability to Soldiers by Fiscal Year 2023. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Karleshia Gater)
WASHINGTON, DC: The US Army will deliver its first operational rounds of its Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon to a unit “in about a year from now” and remains on track to meet its deadline to deliver an offensive unit by the end of fiscal 2023, according to the three-star overseeing the effort.
“We’ll start delivering the first of their operational rounds to that unit in FY23, so about a year from now,” Lt. Gen. Neil Thurgood, director of hypersonics, directed energy, space and rapid acquisition, who also oversees the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, told reporters at the annual AUSA conference earlier this week.
“They’ll get all of their operational rounds by the end of FY23 and we’ll have met the guidance we were given, which was to have an operational offensive unit by the end of FY23,” he said.
RELATED: Army Discloses Hypersonic LRHW Range Of 1,725 Miles; Watch Out China
The news that the unit will receive its first live rounds follows the delivery of its first equipment for the ground-base hypersonic missile earlier in the month — including launchers, battery operations center and modified trucks and trailer. Soldiers will now train on that hardware in preparation for the delivery of the missiles and future flight tests.
“We give them their equipment first [and] let them train,” Thurgood said. “They’ll be part of our flight test program and we have multiple flight tests in front of us, and they will actually shoot those flight tests. And so the training they get initially then will be put into our test program.”
Thurgood told reporters that there are three flight tests planned in fiscal 2022 with “very specific objectives” but would not go into further detail. The RCCTO is responsible for outfitting the first battery, but Program Executive Office Missiles and Space — the transition partner — will outfit batteries two and three in fiscal 25 and 27, respectively.
The Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon is part of the Army’s Long-Range Precision Fires effort, a critical modernization priority as it pivots to the dispersed Indo-Pacific. Breaking Defense has previously reported that the LRHW can fly further than 2,775 km, or about 1,725 miles.
Last week, the service outfitted its I Corps’ 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, 17th Field Artillery Brigade at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. Lockheed Martin developed a new facility for the LRHW in Cortland, Ala. That facility will be able to produce 24 rounds annually once at full-production capacity, according to Eric Scherff, the company’s hypersonic strike vice president.
The Army has been working with the Navy on hypersonic weapons. The Army is developing the glide body, while the Navy is creating the missile stack, Thurgood said.
“We’re going to be common, right? We were trying to shoot similar targets,” Thurgood said, without elaborating.
