The American company General Dynamics Land Systems has signed an agreement with the startup Epirus on the integration of its Leonidas pulsed electromagnetic weapon on the Stryker armored vehicle. As reported by The Drive, the developers want to offer this combination to the US Army, which plans to equip Stryker with a directed energy weapon and has already tested it with a combat laser.
The US military believes that energy weapons will be relatively cheaper than traditional ones and will allow firing at targets while the energy source is working. In 2019, the US Army included the development of such weapons among the priority projects. In particular, the military wants to equip Stryker armored vehicles with directed energy weapons, which are part of the mobile short-range air defense system. His main task will be to fight drones and their swarms.
General Dynamics Land Systems and Epirus announced a partnership agreement on October 25. It involves the integration of Leonidas into manned and unmanned combat vehicles, including Stryker armored vehicles. This is a pulsed electromagnetic emitter with electronic components based on gallium nitride, which is capable of disabling the electronics of unmanned aerial vehicles. It can work both in the target irradiation mode and in the constant radiation mode for the organization of a no-fly zone.
Companies want to offer Stryker with Leonidas to the US Army. In this case, one of their competitors will be Raytheon, which creates a 50-kilowatt laser for an armored vehicle. Earlier we wrote about the testing of this installation during live firing exercises at the Fort Sill base in Oklahoma.
Vasilisa Chernyavtseva