U.S. Marine Corps and the New Long-Range Attack Munition - Naval News (2024)

At the U.S. Marine Corps’ (USMC) Force Design 2030 Update teleconference to the media held on June 2, 2023, USMC generals offered hints of an under-development Long-Range Attack Munition (LRAM) that would be revolutionary to the Marines. Naval News reached out to the USMC’s Public Affairs Department for more information on the LRAM.

Peter Ong 23 Sep 2023

Naval News was in attendance at the media roundtable teleconference. The USMC generals stated that the Hellfire anti-tank guided missile has a range of 8 kilometers (nearly 5 miles) and the Marines deemed that insufficient for precision stand-off range because that would put the AH-1Z attack helicopters well within enemy surface-to-air missile range. To counter this, the under-development Long-Range Attack Munition (LRAM) will have a range in the “hundreds of kilometers and be ready 24 [hours a day]/7 [days a week] with the ground troops.”

The quest for information on the new LRAM took a bit of a circuitous route in August 2023. Naval News inquired to the U.S. Marine’s Public Affairs who transferred the LRAM inquiry to the U.S. Navy’s Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). NAVAIR checked their programs and replied with the U.S. Navy’s Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) and that is not the USMC’s LRAM. NAVAIR then replied to a follow-on email that the LRAM does not exist in its program inventory. So Naval News went another route with the U.S. Marines, and at the end of August, a USMC major at the Director of Communication Strategy & Operations, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Deputy Commandant, Combat Development and Integration at Quantico, Virginia, emailed the following comments.

“From [retired] General Berger’s Statementto Congress from March 2023:

This year, we will invest heavily in the next generation of RDT&E [Research, Testing, Development, and Evaluation] efforts. We are placing an emphasis on the future of Marine aviation, JADC2 [Joint All Domain Command and Control], persistent sensing, and contested logistics, while expanding our experimentation efforts. With the support of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering’s Joint Capability Technology Demonstration office, we will begin the Long-Range Attack Munition (LRAM) project, to rapidly develop and field a low-cost, air launched, family of loitering and swarming munitions. The LRAM can be employed by not just H-1s and F-35s, but also palletized and employed from MV-22s, CH-53Ks, and C-130s, thereby significantly expanding our magazine depth.”

From Brigadier General Stephen Lightfoot, the director of the Capabilities Development Directorate [June 2, 2023 media roundtable]:

The Hellfire missile can go 8 kilometers. This long-range attack ammunition which we’re experimenting with now and we would like to bring into the force, within the next few years, is a capability that brings hundreds of kilometers. And that allows us to be able to use a current platform to be able to do things that we never thought that it would be able to do.The long-range attack munition is absolutely critical and it’s going to help not only in the air and, as a pilot, I will tell you that aviation platforms as a whole are fantastic when they are airborne. But they’re not always airborne, and they can’t always be airborne.So we need to bring that long range attack munition also to the ground side so that it can fire from the ground. So it’s ready 24/7, not just simply on an aerial vehicle that can be forward. You can extend the range of it significantly when you put it on an aircraft, but it also has the ability to do much more. And it would be ready 24/7 with the ground troops.”

Naval News and Author Comments

According to Brigadier General Lightfoot, the USMC is already experimenting with the LRAM although it is unknown at this time if LRAM prototypes exist, what they are, what they look like, and what they can do. The major did tell Naval News to check back as the LRAM program progresses.

Brigadier General Lightfoot also talks about using “current platforms” and the USMC has recently expanded their ground combat launch platforms to include the unmanned remote-operated Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) ROGUE-Fires 4×4 tactical truck that can carry two Naval Strike Missiles (NMESIS) or a single Mark 41 VLS “strike length” canister that can fire the Tomahawk 1,000-mile range cruise missile (LMSL). The M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) might also be a LRAM launch platform candidate. The Long-Range Unmanned Surface Vessel (LRUSV) might also be a LRAM launch platform from the water with the appropriate LRAM launch canisters installed.

For speculative discussion purposes, most likely the LRAM is being developed from scratch by the U.S. Marines as a new design program of requirement that doesn’t exist in the loitering munition (LM) military market. AeroVironment makes the Switchblade^® series of LMs, but none of them go out to “hundreds of kilometers” as their largest one has a range under 100 kilometers. UVision of Israel makes the strategic LM Hero-900 that flies out to 150+ kilometers (93 miles) and the Hero-1250 that has a range of 200+ kilometers (124 miles), but again, none of the LMs produced by UVision go out to “hundreds of kilometers” to satisfy the U.S. Marine Corps’ requirement. Having a LM with a range in the “hundreds of kilometers” will make that LM a strategic weapon and will allow the Marines to able to influence the battlefield deep behind enemy lines, far beyond the reach of traditional M777 155mm USMC towed howitzer tube artillery. When in service, the LRAM will join the ranks of the Precision Strike Missile (400+ kilometers/248+ miles) fired by HIMARS and the Tomahawk cruise missile to strike deep into enemy-held territory.

Being a LM, the LRAM should also be able to target enemy ships because the LRAM can be steered into enemy vessels (if those enemy ships with air defenses do not shoot it down first). While details of the LRAM’s size, shape, and its warhead specifications are unknown at this time, LRAMs that can reach hundreds of kilometers should offer a deterrence against enemy shipping, especially when fired in swarms, to do enough damage and destruction. If the LRAM will be stealthy enough to prevent detection from an enemy warship or a fleet’s advanced radar sensors is not clear at this time, or if stealth is a requirement in designing the LRAM.

LRAMs dropped from pallets from USMC MV-22s tiltrotors, CH-53K helicopters, and C-130 cargo planes compare to the “Rapid Dragon” approach of dropping precision stand-off cruise missiles from the back of U.S. Air Force C-130s, essentially turning cargo planes and rotorcraft with no means of long-distance attack into long-range precision fires (LRPF) bombers. This would greatly aid the USMC in close-air support if, when, and where they have no warplanes to provide that lethal aid at a distance. LRAMs fired from H-1s and F-35Bs should add even more range when at higher altitudes although it is unknown how many LRAMs the USMC helicopters and stealth fighters can carry.

What is also unknown is the “swarming technique” of the LRAM. Practically all LMs in 2023 require an operator to manually pilot the LM to the target using a controller and display screen. Thus, LRAMs, as with all loitering munitions with electro-optical sensors and cameras, are “manpower intensive” to use as they cannot pilot and steer themselves (they are not fire-and-forget). However, to achieve “swarming techniques” may employ the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in an autonomous “follow the leader” mode in that one LRAM may require a human operator to pilot and lead whereas the other LRAMs fired use AI to pilot and steer themselves to follow the human operator LRAM’s path at tactical distances and formations to avoid all getting shot down with just one or two enemy missiles. How the Marines intend to achieve LRAM swarming techniques at such a low cost is unclear although advances and progress in computers, microelectronics, AI programing, military technology, and robotics have made autonomous flight all possible within the past few years.

Naval News will continue to follow the USMC LRAM program as it progresses.

Update:

NAVAIR on September 19, 2023 issued a “LRAM Sources Sought” document:

NAVAIR is conducting market research to determine if there are any responsible sources that have the capability, experience and facilities required to support the rapid development, maturation, integration, prototyping, test, qualification and initial fielding of prototype units in support of the USMC LRAM weapon system.

Requirements:

The USMC requires a Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) Family of Systems (FoS) aircraft agnostic, network enabled, long-range precision weapon that will generate an asymmetric advantage in range, standoff, and lethality to deter/destroy both maritime and land based targets. The USMC’s desired LRAM solution is a modular design that allows trade-space for various mission specific payloads with a minimum total payload weight capacity of 25 pounds (lbs) to include weapon seeker and warhead (but excludes fuel weight), while relying on a Universal Armaments Interface (UAI) for launch platform integration. The Naval Air Systems Command anticipates awarding a development contract for LRAM in FY2025.

The objective of this notice is to help the Government determine if there are existing sources with the capability and experience to rapidly prototype, integrate, test and field a long-range, network-enabled weapon system capable of launch from a Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) platform to meet the following threshold requirements: