Oshkosh Defense unveils new variant of Marine remote fires vehicle

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The Marine Corps’ reply to cellular, long-range fires now contains a multirocket launch system and autonomous tech.

Oshkosh Protection unveiled the latest iteration of the Remotely Operated Floor Unit for Expeditionary Fires, or ROGUE-Fires, on the Affiliation of the U.S. Military’s International Pressure Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, this week.

The payload-agnostic platform, carried by the Joint Mild Tactical Car, or JLTV, permits for long-range fires, autonomous resupply and logistics operations, in accordance with an organization launch.

“Because the battlefield continues to evolve, we’re leveraging the mature and confirmed Oshkosh households of autos to design payload-agnostic autonomous platforms that ship unmatched flexibility, enabling forces to outpace rising threats and preserve operational dominance,” stated Pat Williams, chief applications officer at Oshkosh Protection.

The Marines first awarded a $40 million contract to Oshkosh to construct the unmanned missile launcher after a prototyping section led to September 2023.

Builders eliminated the JLTV cab and connected a missile launcher to construct a cellular firing platform that may be operated autonomously.

Till this latest variant, the main focus of the ROGUE-Fires platform had been to accommodate the Naval Strike Missile, the Marines’ key to knocking out enemy ships to guard and acquire entry for U.S. Navy ships in littoral areas.

The a number of launch rocket system household of munitions, or MFOM, offers the platform a brand new functionality on prime of present options equivalent to long-range precision fires, autonomous resupply and logistics operations.

The corporate has additionally developed an influence prepare that may be tailored for hybrid-electric energy, which permits for silent modes of operation and gas financial savings in addition to electrical charging for units and different platforms.

Williams informed Navy Instances that the corporate unveiled this new variant at an Military present partially as a result of the system additionally suits Military wants, which embody mature programs which have autonomous options and multipayload choices.

The unique idea developed out of a earlier program generally known as “chief follower,” which makes use of autonomy to drive floor autos.

The Military used the identical software program within the ROGUE platform for its personal autonomous driving in each the Expedient Chief Follower and Autonomous Floor Resupply applications, in accordance with a 2021 Military launch.

The software program permits for one manned automobile to steer a collection of unmanned autos in a convoy operation.

The Marines awarded Oshkosh Protection the contract so as to add an off-road, self-driving bundle developed by Forterra, a ground-based autonomy firm, to the ROGUE Fires automobile in January, Protection Information beforehand reported.

The AutoDrive system offers the ROGUE Fires Oshkosh-built automobile off-road, self-driving expertise in “almost any setting,” which strikes “past Chief-Follower capabilities,” Forterra stated in a Jan. 13 assertion.

The primary take a look at hearth of the Naval Strike Missile from the platform occurred in June 2020. The mission sought to provide Marines the punch wanted for lengthy vary, anti-ship fires on a platform extra cellular and in a position to hit shifting targets than the legacy Excessive Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS.

The missile has a spread past 750 kilometers, which aligns with Marine warfighting ideas through which Marine items, some platoon or squad-sized, seize terrain for brief intervals and conduct sea management and sea denial for naval commanders.