{"id":36284,"date":"2020-02-27T21:27:28","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T21:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/02\/27\/army-and-marines-working-to-improve-hellfire-replacements-lethality-in-maritime-environment\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:55:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:55:55","slug":"army-and-marines-working-to-improve-hellfire-replacements-lethality-in-maritime-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/land\/2020\/02\/27\/army-and-marines-working-to-improve-hellfire-replacements-lethality-in-maritime-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"US Army, Marines want to make the Hellfire missile replacement more deadly at sea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. Army and Marine Corps are working to refine the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile\u2019s software<\/a> after it failed to achieve desired lethal effects on a maritime target during its initial operational test, Col. David Warnick, the Army\u2019s program manager for joint attack munition systems, told Defense News in a recent interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The JAGM is to replace<\/a> the legacy Lockheed Martin-made Hellfire missile used across the services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A report from the Pentagon\u2019s chief weapons tester released last month called out the less-than-lethal results during maritime testing of the new missile<\/a>, which is also made by Lockheed. The initial operational test and evaluation, or IOT&E, was held at Fort Hood, Texas, and Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, in April and May 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IOT&E consisted of six shots against stationary and moving targets in both land and maritime environments during the daytime. Following the two test shots that didn\u2019t achieve desired effects, the program manager suspended further maritime testing to analyze results and tweak missile software to improve results, the report stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we had was a few shots that were taken, and we had impacts more toward the back of the boat than we would have liked,\u201d Warnick said. \u201cThey were all successful in stopping the boats \u2026 but we would prefer to have a center mast hit, one that guarantees a little bit more high probability that we\u2019re going to get the lethal effects desired.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team is incorporating changes into the next software build and is anticipating taking three more maritime shots this month at Eglin, Warnick said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBased off of how we\u2019ve run the models, based off of the test readiness review that they just conducted this week, we\u2019re confident that we\u2019ve got it in there,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marine Corps originally planned to conduct its JAGM IOT&E in the second quarter of fiscal 2020, but that schedule has changed, according to Warnick. A new timeline for the testing should be ironed out soon, he indicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\t