Raytheon to provide artillery command and control battlefield network to Jordan to coordinate fire support
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. – Artillery fire-control experts at Raytheon Technologies Corp. will provide a battlefield network for automated planning, coordinating, controlling and executing artillery fire and effects to the Jordanian military under terms of a $29.3 million contract announced last week.
Officials of the U.S. Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., are asking the Raytheon Intelligence & Space segment in Fort Wayne, Ind., to provide the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS) to Jordan.
AFATDS, developed originally in the 1980s, is the fire support command and control (C2) system employed by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to provide automated support for planning, coordinating, controlling and executing fires and effects.
AFATDS ranks targets in importance based on sensor data, and performs attack analysis using situational data combined with commander's guidance, Raytheon officials say.
The system is designed to produce timely, accurate, and coordinated fire support options to attack targets using Army, Marine, Navy, and Air Force weapon systems. It seeks to manage attacks on preplanned and time-sensitive targets.
AFATDS supports weapon systems such as mortars, field artillery, rockets, close-air support, attack helicopters, and naval surface fire support.
AFATDS also acts as a fire support server to local-area and tactical internet-based users, including the AFATDS Effects Management Tool (EMT), and the Marine Corps Command and Control Personal Computer (C2PC) EMT.
AFATDS is part of all U.S. Army echelons from weapons platoon to corps and in the Marine Corps from firing battery to Marine Expeditionary Forces.
AFATDS also is installed aboard the U.S. Navy big-deck amphibious assault ships to support marine expeditionary strike groups during amphibious operations.
AFATDS operates with current and planned U.S. fire support systems, as well as allied field artillery C2 systems such as the United Kingdom's BATES, the German ADLER, French ATLAS, and Italian SIR. AFATDS is approved for foreign military sales.
On this contract Raytheon will do the work in Fort Wayne, Ind., and should be finished by October 2024. For more information contact Raytheon Intelligence & Space online at www.rtx.com, or the Army Contracting Command-Aberdeen Proving Ground at acc.army.mil/contractingcenters/acc-apg.
John Keller | Editor-in-Chief
John Keller is the Editor-in-Chief, Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine--provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronics and optoelectronic technologies in military, space and commercial aviation applications. John has been a member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since 1989 and chief editor since 1995.
