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Throughout the changing political and military global landscapes of the last two decades, there are few system needs that have remained constant. One example is the need to provide U.S. Army early entry/light forces with a vehicle-based capability to defend themselves against heavy modern armored vehicles. Contingency planning in the 1980s to meet this need focused largely on the venerable but obsolescent M551 Sheridan. Even into the early 1990s, it was the M551 that was called upon to make the anti-armor vehicular contribution to the first stages of Operation Desert Shield. The mid-1990s saw the identification of a successor to the M551 in the M8 105 mm armored gun system before budget tradeoffs curtailed that effort. Current development efforts on the 105 mm mobile gun system variant of Stryker are seen by some as the 21st-century step in this evolutionary capability path.
Meanwhile, during much of this period, Army and industry scientists have continued working to refine the design concepts for what some see as the ultimate antitank weapon. Called line of sight antitank (LOSAT), the system is based on the general concept of a large rocket wrapped around a long rod penetrator that goes incredibly fast, simply destroying any armor that it hits. No known or projected armor packages can stop it.
Program participants note that LOSAT's technical challenge is not so much in the manufacture of a hypersonic missile but more in the development of its guidance to allow the missile to consistently hit its target. LOSAT designers employed a guidance system that includes a C02 laser with two functions: determining range to the target and providing updates to the missile. In its simplest sense, the fire unit transmits target location information...