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Lockheed Martin and the US Army recently demonstrated a next-generation, containerised strike capability in the Philippines, designed to provide tactical and strategic flexibility against near-peer competitors.
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Delivered to US Army forces in the Philippines in March, a non-descript convoy of trucks equipped with 40-foot containers set about to reshape the balance of tactical and strategic power in the Indo-Pacific.
This innocuous convoy was carrying a secret, a Mark 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS), similar to those fitted to warships in the US and Royal Australian navies to provide a land-mobile platform capable of launching a host of existing and in-development missile systems.
Linked to the Aegis command and control software, the new “Mid-Range Capability” or MRC designed and built by Lockheed Martin provides the US and, potentially, allies with a traditional Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) similar to those that were legion among the Soviet and Middle Eastern arsenals to enhance the tactical and strategic lethality across a distributed network.
Highlighting this emphasis on rapid deployability, US Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said she was exploring the possibility of MRC deploying to Japan for joint exercises along with the Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force.
Designed to fill the capability gap between the HIMARS launched Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) with a range of approximately 500 kilometres and the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), the MRC fills a niche, deployable, precise and rapid strike capacity.
To give an idea of the short turnaround time from concept to capability, the MRC began life as a paper concept in 2020, with the US Army taking delivery of two batteries by 2024, with an additional two batteries under contract with Lockheed Martin.
Part of this rapid concept-to-capability turnaround was the leveraging of the existing US Navy MK 41 VLS program, which has seen more than 13,700 VLS Modules produced with more than 4,500 successful missile firings.
The MK 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS) is a combat-proven launcher that eliminates problems associated with conventional and single-purpose launchers on surface ships. The MK 41 VLS has been deployed by 17 navies on more than 30 ship classes on more than 200 ships.
