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Early entry forces are one step closer to gaining deep field artillery fires faster on the battlefield.

For the first time, the Army's High Mobility Artillery Rocket System was combat loaded with rockets, flown by C-130 to an Assault Landing Zone on Fort Sill, was downloaded and then fired a six-round live-fire mission.

The Nov. 19 evaluation was a joint effort of the Army, Air Force and Marines, and marked a huge success for the Multiple Launch Rocket System that is designed to deliver "early entry and light forces" protection and firepower they've never had before, said Col. James Heverin.

Heverin is the Training and Doctrine Command system manager for Rocket and Missile Systems here. His office wrote the specifications and requirements for the HIMARS more than 11 years ago.

Weighing in at well under its 44,000-pound, M-270 counterpart, the newly developed 35,000-pound HIMARS is in line with the Army's vision of a lighter, more lethal force, Heverin said.

"This provides us a rocket and missile capability that we have not been able to have in certain places in our battlefield heretofore," Heverin said. "The M-270 and M-270A1 are pretty heavy. If you're going to bring them in, it would have to be brought in, to fixed sites, in the bellies of big planes -- C-5s, C-141s.

"Now with C-130 and C-17 transport, we can go to places on the battlefield that we otherwise haven't been able to go, and put a capability in the hands of commanders to fire the deep fires - to fire the kind of strategic operational kinds of fires - that we haven't had before.

"Early-entry operations forces, light forces, Special Operations Forces, now all stand to gain by the mobility and the transportability that this system provides us," Heverin said.

Under sunny skies, the C-130 flew the combat-loaded HIMARS more than 650 nautical miles, from Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Ala., to the newly developed landing zone at Fort Sill. The 3,500-foot-long strip of dirt was carved out of rugged terrain by Army engineers in the past month, and replicates a "worst case (landing) scenario" for the C-130 crew, said Heverin.

Army officials were ready with stopwatches, timing the crew on its upload, and download of the HIMARS. The crew loaded the launcher onto the plane in 15 minutes, 53 seconds, which was well under their goal of 25 minutes. Once on the ground here, the three-man crew inflated the tires, attached antennas, established radio communications and started the Fire Control Panel. In less than 15 minutes the HIMARS was ready to receive a fire mission.

After receiving the mission, the HIMARS moved to a firing point about five kilometers away and fired a volley of six reduced-range practice rounds. While not part of the evaluation, the live-fire completed the demonstration of the HIMARS' capabilities.

"This (shows), from start to finish, a continuous thread where we have employed this firing platform in a joint capability supporting ground force assets real-time," said Heverin. "This is the beauty - this is the capability that HIMARS brings to the ground force commander.

"The bottom-line for this system is that it performed almost flawlessly, meeting all standards and requirements. This is extremely important to the field artillery and to the Army in general, because the 'King of Battle' is now prepared to move into the future with its newest and most effective launch system," said Heverin.

HIMARS is designed to be transported "intra-theater," or from one theater of operations to another, quickly, said Heverin. This will enable Future Force commanders to "tactically reposition" field artillery assets, he said.

"Future Force operations suggest that it's not going to be a linear battlefield anymore," said Heverin. "In the contemporary operating environment, and how we are designing our Future Force applications, suggests that we are going to have enclaves of forces that, while in proximity to each other, are not necessarily touching each other. So, there will be areas that we control and areas that we don't control physically with people on the ground. If we have to move assets from one side of an area to another to enable these assets to be employed, tactical repositioning (of HIMARS) might be required. So we put HIMARS launchers on planes, move them ... now they're in position and able to range the targets the ground force commanders need serviced."

The HIMARS carries six rockets or one missile -- half the payload of the M-270 -- but fires the entire family of MLRS munitions available. This includes some still in development, such as the Guided MLRS Rocket and Army Tactical Missile System Unitary missile. The M-270s fielded earliest in the inventory cannot fire the newly developed munitions.

The HIMARS are on track to be fielded to the first unit, the 18th Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg, N.C., in March 2005, said Lt. Col. Darryl Colvin, product manager for Field Artillery Launchers, including HIMARS, M-270 and M-270A1. The system is now in the last series of ground and flight tests preparing for operational tests in September through December 2004. Testing will be at Fort Sill and at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. Fort Sill's 1st Battalion, 14th Field Artillery, is scheduled to receive the post's first installment of HIMARS in late 2006.

The Army will purchase 888 launchers, enough for 45 field artillery battalions. The United States Marine Corps is buying 40 launchers, enough to fill two battalions. The Marine's version of the launcher will be identical to the Army's version, which makes the project easier to gain approval and funding, said Heverin.

The Army will initially field the Block I version of HIMARS, said Heverin. The next variant will have "spiraled-in" technologies as they mature, including an improved, more survivable cab, and an improved command and control capability, enabling the launcher to understand targeting messages from different sensors on the battlefield. First the focus will be for the HIMARS to be able to understand messages from all Army sensors, and then the development will move to receiving messages from all Joint Variable Message Format sensors.

Lockheed Martin Missile and Fire Control developed the HIMARS and built the eight "maturation launchers" that are now being tested. The HIMARS is built at their Camden, Ark., plant, which is the same facility that builds the M-270 MLRS.

The maturation launchers were built under a $65 million engineering and manufacturing development contract with Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, Dallas, which was awarded in 2000, according to a Lockheed Martin release.

Two of the launchers were sent to the Marine Corps and six to the Army for testing. These follow the development of four prototypes in the early 1990s. Three are used at Fort Bragg, N.C., and one was sent to Lockheed Martin, Dallas, for troubleshooting.

The Army mounted the HIMARS and its re-supply vehicles onto its new Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles.

The FMTV is a 6x6 all-wheel drive, five-ton truck and has about 14 variations within the Army's system. Using the existing platform lessened the requirement for additional training for soldiers and mechanics.

The Army uses the FMTVs as wreckers, cargo vehicles, and command-and-control vehicles. The suspension was beefed-up with "fish plates" to stabilize the vehicle when firing. The HIMARS can fire from the side of the vehicle, although, it must wait a small amount of time between rounds to return to its aiming point.

For training purposes, the HIMARS offers greater ease and less expense in transporting. Because it is wheeled, it meets all of the requirements of the Department of Transportation and can travel on traditional roadways, without having to be loaded onto trucks or trains.

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