Photo By Jamie Southerland | Brig. Gen. Rory Crooks, director of the Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional...... read more read more
From AI to Cannons: The Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team Showcases Army's Modernization at AUSA
By Jamie Southerland, Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team
Brig. Gen. Rory Crooks, Director of the Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team (LRPF CFT), played a significant role in key events during the 2024 Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting and Exposition, which was held from October 15 to 17 in Washington, D.C.
Media Round Table: Self-Propelled Howitzer Performance Demonstration Update
On October 15, Brig. Gen. Crooks participated in a media roundtable alongside Col. Freeman Bonnette, Project Manager for Self-Propelled Howitzer Systems, and Lt. Col. Todd Mueller, Product Manager for Self-Propelled Howitzer Modernization. The discussion focused on recent developments in the Self-Propelled Howitzer Modernization (SPH-M) effort.
Crooks emphasized the Army's strategic decision to explore various options to leverage mature industry solutions to fulfill critical capability gaps. He noted that the Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) prototype, despite its ambitious goals, fell short due to technological limitations with integrating a .58-caliber tube onto the existing M109 series howitzer chassis.
“We knew it was going to be aggressive. We knew it was going to be high risk, but we thought with the potential of a leap ahead, we needed to go this route,” Crooks stated. “We’re leaving our aperture wide, because our studies have shown that by 2035 against a near-peer adversary in large scale combat operations, we absolutely need an ERCA-like capability — and where we pursue that now is pretty important.”
He also highlighted the ongoing efforts to upgrade munitions and the plans to evaluate both domestic and foreign platforms. “We want to make sure that we can lean toward introducing this capability to our forces by the 2030s,” he added. “So, what that’s driven us to do is to look for mature and available platforms out there, both domestically produced and foreign.”
Crooks mentioned that the Army plans to wrap up demonstrations and move into a competitive evaluation through fiscal year 2026. “By the end of FY26 we anticipate down selecting, and by FY27 we anticipate having a contract awarded for a certain number of cannons,” he said.
Warriors Corner: Integrating All-Source Fused Artificial Intelligence to Increase the Tempo of Decision Making & Combat Lethality
On October 16, Brig. Gen. Crooks joined a panel discussion on integrating AI-enabled, all-source fused intelligence to increase decision-making tempo and combat lethality. He emphasized the importance of leveraging AI to handle vast amounts of data generated by battlefield sensors, ensuring commanders receive actionable insights quickly.
"As we look at joint fires now and into the future, processing, exploitation, and dissemination (PED) is a limiting factor to closing joint kill webs at speeds and scale necessary for large scale combat operations,” Crooks said. “We have an opportunity to expand this finite resource using artificial intelligence and machine learning, playing to their intrinsic strengths in pattern recognition. Meanwhile, humans can contextualize these patterns, applying intuition and empathy to understand and decipher human-driven behaviors. By combining these strengths, we can expand PED as a limited resource both on the front end of our target engagement and on the back end, allowing us to scale up."
In the lead-up to and during the AUSA Annual Meeting, the LRPF CFT engaged with 31 industry partners. The team plans to conduct follow-up sessions with several vendors to further explore promising technologies. These discussions will focus on gaining a deeper understanding of capabilities in launched effects munitions, mobile tactical cannon options, command and control (C2) systems, and autonomous platforms, all aimed at supporting the LRPF's signature efforts.
Wrapping up a productive series of engagements, the LRPF CFT and Brig. Gen. Crooks' participation underscored the Army's commitment to modernization and the integration of advanced technologies. As evident through their efforts at AUSA's annual meeting, the Army remains steadfast in its commitment to modernization and the integration of advanced technologies, ensuring readiness to dominate future battlefields.
The LRPF CFT leads a comprehensive modernization effort to deliver cutting-edge, surface-to-surface fire systems and fire support command and control systems that significantly increase range and effects over currently fielded U.S. and adversary systems.
| Date Taken: | 10.28.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.28.2024 16:34 |
| Story ID: | 484038 |
| Location: | WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, US |
| Hometown: | FORT SILL, OKLAHOMA, US |
| Web Views: | 122 |
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