AUSA 2019: GDLS Showcasing IM-SHORAD Prototype

Kendall Linson, GDLS’s manager of business development, recently discussed the state-of-play for the company’s IM-SHORAD effort. On 1 October, the company delivered its first prototype to the service and the army has now “accepted” a total of four, he said, noting that the fifth IM-SHORAD prototype would be delivered in December. The company will deliver an additional four prototypes in November 2020, bringing the total up to nine.

“Right now, that first vehicle is at Huntsville and it’s going to contractor testing as we speak,” Linson told Jane’s during a 7 October interview.

IM-SHORAD is billed as an interim solution on the path to fielding a SHORAD capable of countering a wider range of threats.

Based around the GDLS produced Stryker A1 wheeled combat vehicle, IM-SHORAD uses a RADA Multi-mission Hemispheric Radar (MHR) capable of tracking air and ground targets, and a weapons package from Leonardo DRS that includes Moog’s Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform (RIwP) with two Hellfire missiles capable of hitting air or ground targets, four Stinger missiles for lighter-armoured air targets, an XM914 30 mm Bushmaster Chain Gun, a 7.62 mm machine gun, an electronic warfare (EW) package, and L3 Wescam’s MX-GCS sighting system.

“With any vehicle, we didn't really encounter any major challenges and those that we did were very small, and we were able to overcome… So, no challenges at this point,” Linson said.