General Atomics is leveraging its experiences in hypersonic, railgun, and drone development in its new Long-Range Maneuvering Projectile (LRMP), a precision artillery round with wings that the company claims could hit moving targets 120 kilometers away in GPS-denied environments.
The entirely self-funded project has been in the works for the past three years and pitched at previous tradeshows, such as Sea Airspace 2023, when Naval News first covered the concept, and last year’s Association of the United States Army. Since then, the unconventional artillery round has matured from an idea to a system currently in testing.
“General Atomics decided that we’re going to self-fund those [LRMP] as fast as we can. And it was basically, what do we need to do that we’re currently doing out of a standard 155 mm gun,” Scott Forney, President of General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, explained to Naval News regarding the rationale of why the company, which traditionally focuses on unmanned aerial vehicles and space systems, decided to invest into an artillery round.
“We’re spending our profit to make sure that we go as fast as we can. So we’re limited by humans, nothing else right now. Financially, the company’s made a decision that we want to make sure this is ready for the warfighter as fast as we can. When you look at what the Russia-Ukraine war is revealing, you need more standoff, period. And so we think this is the right technology to give you that standoff.”
To strike targets at ranges over double, and in some cases triple, of existing base bleed and rocket-assisted projectiles, LRMP will deploy wings. According to Forney, using existing propulsion methods would “make it too complex,” so the design examined General Atomics’ prior work designing the MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1C Grey Eagle drones. LRMP’s sensors and electronics were also derived from the company’s hypersonics and railgun programs.
“Where we ended up was, let’s develop a projectile that will launch out of a barrel, a standard 155 mm, No separate gunpowder, whatever bag of gunpowder there is, we’ll use that as an explosive to launch the system,” said Forney. General Atomics’ experiences in designing electronics to withstand the forces sustained by hypersonics and railgun projectiles
Encased within a discarding sabot to protect LRMP’s wings and internals during firing, the round will reach its apogee of around 40,000 to 45,000 feet and deploy its wings. From there, the round will glide, and maneuver, to its target. From a 2023 interview, Naval News understands that this maneuvering capability could be used to conduct “endgame maneuvers” in its terminal engagement phase.
Regarding the unusual shape of LRMP, the company claimed that the design enhances the round’s precision and range. “Our projectile is not round. As you can see, it’s what’s called a rouleaux triangle, very close to a rule of triangle. So those triangular edges allow us to have more controllability and more lift to help us achieve that 120-kilometer range,” said Forney.
With recent lessons from the Russian Invasion of Ukraine in mind, Forney highlighted that LRMP does not rely on Global Positioning System guidance. Instead, the company is currently developing an “alternate guidance system” that relies on machine learning and camera systems within the projectile. The model of LRMP displayed at AUSA contains two lenses, one on the nose and another oriented downward. “We have multiple seekers, camera systems on the projectile so that we can see ahead, we can see down, and we’ll get to target,” said Forney. He also claimed that the seeker would draw on lessons from the company’s work on the Vintage Racer program, which supposedly looked to deploy a loitering system from a hypersonic missile over a target area.
Despite the relatively small size of LRMP, General Atomics claims that the kinetic payload would be equivalent to a 120mm shell. Forney told Naval News that an unspecified company is currently working on the round’s lethal payload. However, LRMP’s modularity also permits an Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) payload, which is being leveraged from the company’s work on Vintage Racer and projects for the Space Development Agency on tracking constellations.
“It will be very comparable to the things we’ve already demonstrated through a 60,000-foot drop from Vintage Racer. We did that over and over again, and we wanted to make sure that we had the smarts in the seeker system to be able, first of all, look at the terrain, look at what the enemy’s doing, and then get to target,” said Forney.
According to General Atomics, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps have demonstrated their interest in LRMP. Aside from the round’s advanced capabilities, Forney also stressed the company’s efforts to simultaneously develop the production capabilities necessary to meet the expected demand.
“We’re getting excited. We’re building right now dozens and dozens of rounds to get ready to do our next test series. And our hope is to get into low-rate initial production by the end of 2025. In order to do that, it requires a different way of thinking on how you’re going to go into production,” said Forney.
While the company’s existing computer numerical control machines could support up to 180000 pounds of material and create objects up to 18 feet in diameter, Forney highlighted that General Atomics is currently seeking out more machines to meet the projected production quantities, which could reach up to 100,000 rounds a month following talks with interested U.S. armed services and international parties.
Going forward, General Atomics is looking to complete the 155 mm-launched LRMP by the end of 2025. While a version of LRMP that could be fired from the U.S. Navy’s 127 mm guns is also being designed, the company is currently prioritizing the development of the variant meant for the Army and Marine Corps. Forney noted that the maritime version would have a different mission set and a lower range, around 75 kilometers, compared to the 155 mm-launched LRMP.
“It’s an exquisite round. It’s very accurate, it maneuvers, it’s got nice energetics, that we’ll have in it. We’re very excited about all the capability it brings to the warfighter.”
