MGM-166 LOSAT

HVM was a multi-platform weapon supported by the US Air Force, for the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, and by the US Army and US Marine Corps, for helicopters and other vehicles.

To fill AAWS-H, Vought developed a slightly larger extended-range version of HVM known as Kinetic Energy Missile (KEM), while its partner, Texas Instruments, provided a new FLIR targeting system that it was already working on as a TOW upgrade.

[5] However, in order to reduce costs and improve air mobility in a post–Cold War world, LOSAT eventually emerged on an extended-length heavy-duty Humvee with a hard-top containing four KEMs ready to fire, along with a trailer containing another eight rounds in two-round packs.

[2] The first of the 12 LOSAT units was delivered in October 2002, and the system began a series of 18 production-qualification test firings in August 2003, at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

[3] By this point the Army had already started work on a system known as the Compact Kinetic Energy Missile (or CKEM), based on the LOSAT concepts but smaller and lighter, more in tune with real-world threats.

An artist's impression of a LOSAT system firing from a CCVL chassis [ 1 ]