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LAWTON, Oklahoma—The undefeatable ballistic missile in the future will be hypersonic, cheap, long-range, capable of switching targets inflight, able to strike mobile targets and feature high maneuverability in the last seconds of flight, the U.S. Army’s acquisition chief for artillery says.
“If you can combine all of those characteristics into a single, long-range precision fires capability, I can tell you right now there are no adversarial threat air defense systems that can defeat that type of capability. So that’s really what we’re driving for,” said Lt. Gen. Frank Lozano, the Army’s program acquisition executive for Fires.
Those features are driving the Army’s interest in developing a new arsenal of weapons with those features and the ability to be produced in large quantities.
The Army’s recent decision to recompete the Precision Strike Missile Increment 4 reflects this new understanding of future needs, Lozano said, addressing the Fires Symposium here.
Low-cost, containerized munitions and ground-launched cruise missiles are also rising up the Army’s list of weapons priorities, Lozano said.
“When you hear the Joint Staff talk about affordable mass munitions, affordable solutions with those five characteristics en masse are going to dominate tomorrow’s battlefield,” Lozano said.
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