| Reprinted with
Permission DefenseNews.com
March 2, 2007
The U.S. Army is starting to take delivery of armored vehicles to be fitted with
sensors and gear to help field artillery achieve the same pinpoint strikes as
aircraft dropping satellite-guided bombs with the help of special-ops forward
air controllers.
Nineteen armored vehicles will be
delivered this year, with 40 more next year, Textron Senior Vice President Tom
Walmsley said.
In October, Textron received a $75.8
million order for 107 M117 armored vehicles from the U.S. Army Tank-automotive
and Armaments Command’s (TACOM) Life Cycle Command.
Those
vehicles are going to DRS Technologies’ plant in West Plains, Mo., where
DRS is installing its Knight precision targeting systems under an initial $12
million contract from TACOM. The Army designates the combined system — Knight
system plus M117 vehicle — the M1200. The first completed Armored Knight
M1200 vehicles are scheduled to be delivered in March 2008, according to DRS officials. The
Textron-DRS team is “combining a great sensor package on a highly mobile
and survivable platform, something that can accommodate the weight of a sensor,
as well as allow plenty of weight margin for soldiers and their gear,” Walmsley
said.
The M1200 is designed primarily to fix targets
for field artillery units. Among its principal missions is Combat Observation
Laser Teams, which places laser beams on targets to help field artillery units
direct their fire.
The Knight sensor suite includes
a laser designator and laser rangefinder, along with a Global Positioning System
receiver, thermal imaging and digital command-and-control systems, allowing the
system to precisely locate targets from several kilometers away.
“It
is a vehicle that works with artillery,” said Jim Marshall, a DRS business
development manager. “There are two types of munitions: laser-designated
munitions or target location munitions. Knight gives you an extremely accurate
designator of the target, or gives you a precise grid location on the ground such
that the artillery has a good point to fire to. This is the only system with the
targeting accuracy of a JDAM [Joint Direct Attack Munition] or Excalibur”
guided artillery shell.
Marshall said this is the first
time an armored vehicle will carry a long-range laser rangefinder that can designate
targets.
“The predecessor of the Armored Knight
was the Knight system M707, which is a comparable sensor suite placed on a Humvee
chassis,” Marshall said. “Now, you have these capabilities on an armored
vehicle that gets you the additional protection.” | 
