ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. – Artillery fire-control experts at RTX Corp. will provide the U.S. Army with tactical networking for automated planning, coordinating, controlling and executing artillery fire and effects under terms of a $9.1 million contract announced in May.
Officials of the U.S. Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., are asking the RTX Raytheon segment in Fort Wayne, Ind., to provide the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS).
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, RTX officials say.
The system is designed to produce timely, accurate, and coordinated fire control 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 RTX will do the work in Fort Wayne, Ind., and should be finished by March 2027. For more information contact RTX Raytheon online at www.rtx.com/raytheon.
