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Recent wars have brought a new technology to the fore: precision artillery fire offers an alternative to air support that has a shorter reach, with very considerable throw-weight and repeatable fire, plus 100% persistence and availability in any weather. GMLRS is a highly accurate GPS-guided rocket that can be fired by ground forces 35 miles away and arrive on target, in under a minute, under any conditions, with a 200 pound unitary warhead that will take out a fortified house. That’s very useful. When integrated into a battlefield surveillance/strike setup like Task Force ODIN, their effectiveness is kicked up several more notches.
In July 2010, Lockheed Martin Missile and Fire Control in Dallas, TX received a $469.9 million firm-fixed-price and cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for Full Rate Production Lot V procurement for 4,770 total unitary rocket pods (with 6 227mm rockets each), and 530 reduced range rocket pods (RRPR, used for training). Work will be performed in Dallas, TX (15%), and Camden, AR (85%), with an estimated completion date of June 30/13. One bid was solicited with one bid received by US AMCOM Contracting Center at Redstone Arsenal, AL (W31P4Q-10-C-0270).
This Lot 5 buy covers hardware, support, spares, and “obsolescence support” for the USA, foreign partners, and Foreign Military Sales customers, as follows:
* US Army: 535 GMLRS unitary warhead pods, 538 download/demate pods, 118 download/demate supplemental funding unitary pods, 3 stockpile reliability program pods with their 18 production validation test rockets, 344 RRPR pods; 344 download/demate RRPR pods
* USMC: 98 unitary pods, 74 supplemental funding unitary pods, 120 RRPR pods, 120 download/ demate RRPR pods
* Britain: 72 unitary pods, 72 download/demate unitary pods
* Germany: 20 unitary pods, 20 download/demate unitary pods
* France: 43 unitary pods, 43 download/demate unitary pods, “facilitization”
* Jordan: 24 unitary pods, 24 download/demate unitary pods, 36 RRPR pods, 36 download/demate RRPR pods, GMLRS technical publications
* UAE: 30 RRPR pods, 30 download/demate RRPR pods
Rocket pods can be carried on M142 HIMARS truck-mounted systems (1 pod, 6 rockets), or tracked M270 MLRS launchers (2 pods, 12 rockets).
