The service in recent months has been doing market research to inform its pursuit of a “multi-domain artillery cannon” (MDAC) and hypervelocity projectiles (HVP), including via requests for information that were released in July.

“Based on market research conducted in July-October 2024 … the U.S. Army RCCTO believes BAE Systems Land & Armaments L.P. is the only responsible source capable of developing and delivering both the MDAC and HVP prototypes within the required schedule; competition of this effort is not practicable and will not meet mission fielding requirements,” service officials wrote in a notice of intent to sole source that was published Dec. 20 on Sam.gov, using an acronym to refer to the Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office.

The RCCTO therefore plans to issue a sole-source request for prototype proposal to the contractor as it looks to award an other transaction agreement, according to the notice.

The Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), which falls under the Office of the Secretary of the Defense, awarded the firm a $16 million contract a few years ago to mature and demonstrate the lethality of its hypervelocity projectile against ground targets at “extremely long ranges,” according to a company news release.

The contractor has also worked on HVP technology for the Navy.

“The HVP is a next-generation, common, low drag, guided projectile capable of executing multiple missions for a number of gun systems, such as the Navy 5-Inch; Navy, Marine Corps, and Army 155-mm systems; and future electromagnetic (EM) railguns,” according to a BAE product description. “The HVP’s low drag aerodynamic design enables high-velocity, maneuverability, and decreased time-to-target.”

When fired from 155-millimeter tube artillery, the projectile has a range of 43 nautical miles, or about 80 kilometers, and a maximum rate of fire of six rounds per minute, according to a company data sheet.

The MDAC effort, which is focused on air-and-missile defense capabilities, is a new-start project for fiscal 2025.

The technology is intended to defend U.S. military forces at fixed and semi-fixed locations against attack by “a broad spectrum” of drones, fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, cruise missiles, subsonic and supersonic cruise missiles, and “other advanced threats,” according to officials.

In future conflicts, the Army and other U.S. military services — collectively known as the joint force — are expected to be at risk from drone swarms and missile barrages, and they’re looking for new tools to cost-effectively counter them.

“Current air and missile defense munitions require onboard guidance and targeting components that drive high munition procurement costs. In contrast, the MDAC seeks to significantly reduce munition costs and enhance expeditionary utility by developing a 155 mm artillery cannon-based air defense system capable of firing Hypervelocity projectiles (HVP)s, integrated into a wheeled platform. The HVP will communicate with off-board sensors that track both the HVP and the threat and complete the interception of the target. The MDAC will interface with an external GFP Command and Control Battle Manager (C2BM) and the Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) Battle Command System (IBCS),” Army officials wrote in an RFI released in July.

The term “hypervelocity” refers to speeds of Mach 5 — about 3,836 miles per hour — or higher.

According to a Congressional Research Service report, a gun-launched HVP had an estimated unit procurement cost of about $85,000 in 2018. In comparison, some U.S. military interceptors for air-and-missile defense cost millions of dollars.

The RCCTO has a requirement to develop and deliver a “full” MDAC weapon system battery by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2027 and carry out an operational demonstration in fiscal 2028.

That delivery is expected to include eight multi-domain artillery cannons, four multi-function precision radars (MFPR), two multi-domain battle managers (MDBM), and at least 144 hypervelocity projectiles, according to an RFI.

The HVP must be capable of supporting a launcher environment with peak pressures and setback greater than current surface-to-surface artillery; interface with government-provided off-board sensors that track both the HVP and threat to complete the interception of a target; interface with an inductive data transmission device to receive pre-launch mission data; enable rapid first-round response time and high rate of fire; maintain projectile maneuverability through interception of target; minimize the minimum required time of flight to intercept targets; maximize the lethal effects against threat systems; enable a rapid ammunition resupply time via manual and automated means; and demonstrate supportability, safety, and cybersecurity characteristics in the projectile design, among other requirements, officials noted in an RFI.

The Army plans to spend about $646 million total on the MDAC system project in fiscal 2025-2027 leading up to the demo, according to budget documents.

“The MDACS program will utilize streamlined acquisition methods to rapidly prototype the capability. It will leverage existing prototypes from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) to refine requirements and address Army and Joint Force concepts. Throughout the developmental effort, Soldier touchpoints will gather feedback for Army requirements generation and prototype maturation. MDACS will use the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) and conduct a series of flight tests culminating in a battery-level operational assessment … in FY 2028,” per the budget documents.

Once the demo is concluded, the prototype weapon system is intended to be delivered to a “unit of action” supporting “multi-domain operations” as a “residual combat capability.” The prototype will also inform an “enduring capability requirement,” a program-of-record decision and future acquisition activities, officials wrote.

A BAE Systems media relations official did not respond to a request for comment.

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The company is touting the portability of the 10-kilowatt system, which is approximately 12 cubic feet — or about the size of a mini fridge — weighs less than 200 pounds and can be carried and installed by just two people, according to a release.

“The laser is ruggedized for field use and miniaturizing it allows for rapid placement in tactical situations,” per the release.

The company declined to identify the U.S. government customer that’s receiving it or say whether the technology is a prototype or a production-ready platform that is ready to be deployed in a real-world tactical operation setting.

“Due to the critical nature of the technology, certain information regarding Phantom will continue to be protected by enhanced security measures,” the company said in a statement to DefenseScoop, adding: “We are unable to speak to specifics at this time.”

However, the Defense Department has been openly exploring a variety of directed energy weapons. And the Northrop Grumman release noted that the unidentified Phantom customer “will integrate it with other subsystems for testing and delivery to military customers.”

“By miniaturizing this advanced capability, we are expanding the reach of our technology and continuing to lead the way in high-energy lasers. Northrop Grumman is using its expertise in directed energy to deliver an extremely compact, lightweight and efficient laser for the warfighter,” Robert Fleming, the company’s vice president and general manager for strategic space systems, said in a statement.

The U.S. military is keen on fielding directed energy weapons, including for defense against drones and missiles, because they are relatively inexpensive per shot compared to traditional air-defense systems and they possess nearly unlimited magazines.

However, producibility, reliability and affordability are key considerations, Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, director of the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO), noted during remarks at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium earlier this month.

“The one thing we need help in is to get affordable directed energy, because that’s the reason we’re doing it, right. We’re doing directed energy because we don’t have the magazine depth, and quite frankly, can’t afford the magazine depth to have missiles everywhere that we want them. So, having the capability of directed energy to provide that kind of renewable kill power on a platform is very appealing — but it’s got to be affordable, it’s got to be reliable, and we’ve got to learn then how to fight it with those soldiers,” he said.

The U.S. military is still working through how best to employ lasers alongside other capabilities.

“What we don’t know yet for directed energy systems necessarily is how to fight [with] them. How to fight lasers on the battlefield, how to integrate kinetic and non-kinetic effectors, like directed energy, and our traditional air-defense missiles into the battlespace,” Rasch said.

When it comes to air-defense doctrine, “usually you get something about, like, shoot [the weapon] as far out as you can with an acceptable probability of kill. And so that generally leads to expensive missiles going out a long, long way to hit that interceptor. And we’ve got to figure out where’s our confidence base in directed energy where … I can make a conscious decision to let that missile come through because I know my DE system is going to take it out at a shorter range. We’ve got a lot to learn in that space and a lot of confidence to build,” he added.

The Army has been conducting demonstrations of 10-kilowatt palletized high-energy laser prototypes, among other DE technologies, as the service looks for new tools to combat small drones and other threats.

But officials still need to collect more data, according to Rasch.

“First, what’s the lethality of these systems? That’s the number one prerogative, you know, number one priority. What can we do with them to get at the threat set, the variety of threats sets that we face in this space? Number two, how reliable are they at different scales? You know, is the 10-kilowatts [laser] as reliable as the 300 [kilowatt]? What are our reliability weak points that we need to learn and where’s the knee in that curve? And then finally, affordability,” he said.

“As we collect our data over the next couple of years, I believe we’ll have the right set of data to again inform the next big decisions for the Army,” he added. Lasers “are gonna be on the battlefield in the future, we know it. But what point do we go all-in at first?”

New platforms are also being deployed overseas for operational assessments. For example, 10-kilowatt laser weapons have been transferred to Africa Command, Central Command and Indo-Pacific Command. A 20-kilowatt system is also being sent to Centcom, according to Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, director of the Pentagon’s Joint Counter-Small Unmanned Aerial Systems Office (JCO).

The JCO is focused on new technologies that could defeat small drones and UAS smarms.

The “higher the kilowatt, the quicker in most cases, if the beam control is done properly, you will get a quicker defeat on some of these UASs, which allow the operators to move to multiple [targets] and then move to higher-end target sets,” Gainey said at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium.

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The idea was the brainchild of the commander of Army Futures Command, Gen. James Rainey.

“About four or five months ago, he pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, I’ve been thinking about this. And I want to use some of that RCCTO process … to try to see how we can accelerate our learning in the space of robotics and payloads — payloads being the key piece — and autonomy. And I don’t just want to do it like human-machine teaming where together they accomplish something. I want to have a series of continual learning where we can figure out … how to divide up the task at hand so that we optimize what humans do best on that values-based decision-making and what machines can do best. And we need to do it very, very quickly,’” Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, director of the RCCTO, said Wednesday during remarks at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium.

Rasch has been tasked with creating an integrated solutions team for developing human-machine integrated formations and integrating cross-Army autonomous and robotics initiatives into operationally deployable prototypes, according to his slide presentation.

The service has been pursuing new drones, robotic combat vehicles and optionally manned fighting vehicles, artificial intelligence, and other enablers of autonomous systems.

The intent of the new RCCTO-led effort is to deploy “formation-based” capabilities, not just buy and test new equipment, and make infantry and armor companies more lethal and more survivable on the battlefield, Rasch noted.

“Deliverables” that will be pulled from other components of the Army enterprise include initial platforms, payloads and “autonomous behaviors.” There will also be rapid prototyping of additional systems to create an architecture for human-machine integrated formations, resilient network/enablers, and enhanced platforms, payloads and behaviors, according to Rasch’s slides.

The Army wants to quickly get capabilities into the hands of soldiers so they can provide feedback. The current vision is to “start small” with one or two platoons of mechanized and light units and then quickly scale capabilities to other formations.

Rasch’s slides included a diagram of notional “initial formation(s)” of human-machine integrated forces that could include two “control vehicles” overseeing four robotic platforms, for infantry brigade combat teams and armored brigade combat teams.

The RCCTO is about to meet with the Army “board of directors” — which includes the service’s secretary, chief of staff, vice chief of staff, undersecretary, acquisition chief, and the head of Army Futures Command — to flesh out how to proceed.

“We spent about the first three-and-a-half months trying to get our arms wrapped around it so that we can understand where’s the S&T, what’s the maturity of that technology that we can afford to pull up to do hardening of what typically to date has been demonstrator-type prototypes, but get something hardened that we can deliver to soldiers,” Rasch said of the RCCTO. “This effort is still in planning. And that board of directors I mentioned upfront, we’re going to see them here within the next 30 days to kind of lay out the plan for that activity.”

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The award, announced by the company Monday, comes as the U.S. military is on the hunt for new capabilities to address the growing threat from adversaries’ unmanned aerial vehicles.

The Leonidas system will support the Army’s Indirect Fire Protection Capability-High-Power Microwave Program.

“As part of the Other Transaction Authority, Epirus collaborates with the RCCTO to rapidly deliver several prototype systems of Leonidas for $66.1 million in 2023 with options to acquire additional support services. Epirus plans to deliver and support prototypes of integrated HPM capability and, as part of the contract’s design, work with the RCCTO to transition Leonidas into a future program of record after successful demonstration of the prototypes,” according to a company press release.

The Pentagon is keen on directed energy weapons for counter-UAV missions because they are less expensive to operate than more traditional air-defense systems that fire missiles — also known as “kinetic” interceptors” — and can engage more targets because they have deeper magazines and don’t require reloading.

“Time and time again, we’ve seen that current air defense systems are ill-equipped to tackle the threat of autonomous drone swarms. This contract with the RCCTO brings new counter-swarm capability to the UAS fight with our cost-effective, modular and upgradable Leonidas systems,” Epirus CEO Ken Bedingfield said in a statement. “As the threat environment continues to evolve, so, too, will our capabilities, ensuring the U.S. Army is equipped with effective countermeasures to near-term and over-the-horizon electronic threats for decades to come.” 

The Leonidas “counter-electronics system” has “demonstrated lethality against a broad range of UAS and electronic systems and achieved swarm defeat at multiple U.S. Government-sponsored test events, outperforming six down-selected systems,” per the release.

The latest iteration was unveiled in April 2022. 

The Defense Department’s Joint Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office (JCO) conducted demonstrations of several high-power microwave weapons at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, last spring.

“The Epirus system was able to defeat targets in the range that is normally associated with what is currently in the field and has the promise to be a little bit more effective in the future,” Michael DiGennaro, head of the test team for the JCO’s acquisition and resourcing division, told reporters after the event concluded.

Leonidas is equipped with solid-state Gallium Nitride (GaN) power amplifiers. Artificial intelligence-enabled GaN semiconductors enable high levels of power density without special cooling tech, according to Epirus.

“The system is frequency agile and rapidly fires a barrage of unique waveforms to exploit the specific frequencies that UAS targets are most susceptible to. This enables tactically relevant counter-swarm ranges beyond small arms fire, even against diverse swarms,” according to a product datasheet.

Epirus is touting the weapon’s accuracy and targeting flexibility aided by “digital beamforming.”

“Digital beamforming enables pinpoint accuracy so that operators disable threats … and nothing else,” according to the datasheet, which says the technology can enable “programmable no-fly zones” where enemy drones can be targeted but friendly UAS can operate unscathed.

The system can be mounted on vehicles — including Army Strykers — or towed, and the weapon can be used “within minutes” after powering up. It also includes line-replaceable amplifier modules that can be serviced or replaced in under eight minutes, according to Epirus.

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