WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army tapped Lockheed Martin to fit a combined cyber, electronic warfare and signals intelligence system on Stryker combat vehicles and come up with a plan for doing so on the new troop-carrying Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle.
A nearly $73 million order, announced this month by the Army Project Manager for Electronic Warfare and Cyber, calls for Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team technologies, or TLS-BCT, installed on Strykers, made by General Dynamics, and “initiates the system design” for mounting onto AMPVs, made by BAE Systems.
The TLS-BCT system, developed by Lockheed, is one of several Army initiatives to reinvigorate its EW capabilities. It’s meant to provide soldiers with increased situational awareness by sensing what’s on the battlefield and beefing up options to disrupt or dismantle faraway networks.
Modern warfare often revolves around control of the electromagnetic spectrum for weapons guidance, allied communication and enemy identification and suppression.
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The go-ahead for Lockheed to work on AMPV integration follows both a previous TLS-BCT award in July, worth about $59 million, and delivery of the AMPV to the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, at Fort Stewart in Georgia.
The AMPV replaces the Vietnam War-era M113, hundreds of which have been committed to Ukraine to help fend off Russia’s invasion. It shares common components with other Army assets, including howitzers.
The Army, which has purchased thousands of Strykers in the program’s two-decade history, expects to buy 197 AMPVs in fiscal 2024, when combining base budget and supplemental funding, Defense News reported.
Colin Demarest was a reporter at C4ISRNET, where he covered military networks, cyber and IT. Colin had previously covered the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration — namely Cold War cleanup and nuclear weapons development — for a daily newspaper in South Carolina. Colin is also an award-winning photographer.
