RWS have become in current operations that in 2007 the US Army signed a contract with the Norwegian defence manufacturer Kongsberg Protech Systems for their PROTECTOR RWS as part of the Common Remotely Operated Weapons Station (CROWS II) programme. Within two years the first order for up to 10,349 systems had been increased.
On April 20 this year Kongsberg
received an additional order for their PROTECTOR system worth $209 million and within a week this was followed by another order worth $57 million.
The PROTECTOR system is in service with 17 nations around the world and has over 20 million hours of operation with an Operational Readiness Rate of over 99%. The next development of RWS is to take the human out of the vehicle. The information gathered by the sights and sensors can be transmitted to an operator who is miles away from the operational area. A good example are aerial RPVs that may be operating over Afghanistan, but are “flown” by pilots sitting at controls as far away as the United Kingdom. The RPVs may
be for reconnaissance and intelligence gathering or may be armed and the operator tasked with attacking remote and difficult targets.
Robot vehicles like the tracked US Marine Corps’ Gladiator Tactical Unmanned Ground Vehicle (TUGV) built by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control or the bigger BAE Systems Black Knight Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicle may take over the role of the point man, just as RWS have taken over top cover. In the future the vehicle will be compact enough to be carried in a pack or in the back of an APC. It can be sent forward into likely ambush sites to study the terrain as the patrol commander monitors its movements on a portable screen. The RWS will allow him to open fire at positions that may conceal hostile troops.
These unmanned vehicles can also be used for perimeter security – if sensors pick up signals indicating an intrusion, it will no longer mean that a patrol or guard has to find the location and establish what has happened. The land RPV will simply trundle down the perimeter track to investigate with the operator, confident that through its RWS he or she can attack a
hostile threat. The attraction of these systems is that unlike a human guard they will not lose concentration and bad weather will not degrade their performance. This may sound like the dreams of H.G. Wells but programmes are ongoing and entering service. However RWS need not mount lethal weapons – they may fire CS gas or baton rounds, sticky foam or nets all of which would incapacitate intruders without killing or injuring them. The future holds the prospect of small airborne and wheeled or tracked RPVs equipped with RWS being called in to neutralise a threat and operating like a mechanical and electronic pack of guard dogs. Some commentators take the idea further suggesting that RPVs could be completely autonomous and so capable of making their own decisions about who or what to attack – however let us leave that to science fiction. The hard pressed top cover sentry or point man will be happy that today remote weapons systems have taken some of the risk out of a very risky job.
Will Fowler, Editor, G3 DEFENCE
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