TEXTRON's SCORPION system succeeds

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Textron Defense Systems' XM1100 Scorpion Intelligent Munitions System Demonstrates Operational Capabilities in Successful End-to-End Testing

(Source: Textron Inc.; issued January 19, 2010)

WILMINGTON, Mass. --- Textron Defense Systems, an operating unit of Textron Systems, announced today that its XM1100 Scorpion networked sensor and munitions system successfully completed a rigorous test series at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Testing culminated in the first end-to-end, live-fire engagement by the Scorpion networked sensor and munitions platform, with the Scorpion system scoring a perfect three for three against vehicle targets. Remote-controlled military targets were driven through multiple fields of emplaced Scorpion systems, which identified and tracked the targets and passed information to an operator overlooking the fields. The operator then armed a fully functional Scorpion system with a high-explosive munition, destroying the targets and demonstrating the system’s effectiveness.

The Scorpion system includes networked, arrayed lethal and non-lethal engagement effects and components for command and control, situational awareness and communications, all of which are linked by a central command-and-control module. The system can detect, track, classify, report and engage enemy vehicles, making it effective for battlespace shaping and force protection.

A full network of 16 dispensing modules was employed during the White Sands Missile Range test event, which included demonstration of command and control, ground sensor tracking, target engagement, anti-vehicle munitions launch and warhead lethality, as well as self-destruction testing and soldier interaction testing and assessment. Additional achievements included the testing of a fielded Scorpion system overnight to observe its force protection capability.

“The White Sands Missile Range end-to-end test event demonstrates that our Scorpion system operates as intended — to protect warfighters from surrounding threats and provide them critical force protection capability,” says Textron Defense Systems’ Senior Vice President and General Manager Mark Catizone. “The demonstration’s successful completion brings us an important step closer to delivering this system into the hands of warfighters.”

Following this major program milestone, Textron Defense Systems plans to deliver production representative systems for government qualification testing, which is expected to commence early this year.

Textron Defense Systems employs advanced technology and industry expertise to develop and manufacture state-of-the-art smart weapons; airborne and ground-based sensors and surveillance systems; and protection systems for the defense, aerospace and homeland security communities. Its innovative systems for the military provide precision effects, actionable intelligence and force protection.

Textron Systems Corporation has been providing innovative solutions to the defense, homeland security and aerospace communities for more than 50 years. Textron Systems Corporation is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Textron Inc.

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Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Army Holding Anti-Armor Tech in Reserve

Posted by Paul McLeary at 6/23/2011 9:12 AM CDT



While the term Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP), will probably always bring to mind the use that Iraqi Shiite militias made of them against American armored vehicles, they’ve actually been around in some form since WWII. And now, the U.S. Army has designed its own version.

Textron and the U.S. Army have worked for several years to develop a networked system that can launch an EFP slug for use in force protection and road access denial, but after a round of successful tests in 2009, and then again this past spring, the Army is keeping the weapon on the shelf until it sees the need to invest more cash in the system.

Called the Scorpion, the idea behind the system is that it can replace landmines as both a way to set up a protective field around a fixed site, or to block a roadway. Capable of being about 50 meters away from its target, the device uses acoustic and seismic sensors to detect a threat and warn an operator who is manning a laptop at a safe standoff distance. Once the operator identifies the approaching vehicles as hostile, he gives the Scorpion the ok to fire. That’s where the EFP comes in.

One of the four launchers on the box fires a projectile 50-60 feet in the air, where it then uses its laser radar to determine that “I found something that’s higher than the normal terrain,” says Jay Johnson, Textron's director of business development. Then it begins looking for a heat source, and when it finds it, it fires the EFP down at the engine. The EFP consists of one main charge and 16 small ones, with the large molten copper charge shooting for the heat-producing engine, while the smaller ones makes a circle around it.



Johnson said that the system can be temporarily disabled to allow for civilian or friendly vehicles to pass, and several Scorpions can be networked together to form a field of fire. After passing a live fire test in 2009, the Army’s Project Manager Close Combat Systems gushed in a release that Scorpion “gives U.S. forces the ability to detect and neutralize enemy forces, cover gaps in dangerous terrain to prevent enemy maneuver, protect fixed facilities and secure flanks, allow for movement of friendly forces, and provide for immediate selective engagement.”

The problem is, despite passing an Army Critical Design Review in July 2009 and completing a government design verification field test earlier this year, the Army is more focused on the fight since Iraq and Afghanistan, and not necessarily trying to counter armored vehicles. Still, Robert Polutchko, vice president, Aerial Denial for Textron says that “we’re at a good mature level of the system” so that while the Army wants to hold off on the capability for now, it’s still a potential tool in its toolbox.

When asked if the company was looking for possible foreign customers, Johnson said that since it is an Army product, the service would have to sign off on any deals.

Pics, US Army; Textron