US Army showing interest in G/ATOR missile-killing radar, Northrop says

Northrop Grumman’s new multi-mission radar system has earned effusive praise from Marine Corps leaders as it surges well past the halfway point in fielding. On the heels of that success, officials said this month, other potential customers, including the U.S. Army, have expressed interest in the system.

The AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar, or G/ATOR, is the Marine Corps’ solution for defending against a broad range of airborne threats , particularly in the Pacific littorals.

It replaces five older radar systems, and last year received an extended-range software upgrade that boosted its capability and advanced its ability to differentiate friends or foes in the air.

In a call with reporters Oct. 7, Northrop Director of Mission Systems Paul Weaver said the company had delivered 43 of the 60 G/ATOR systems the Marine Corps has ordered, of which five are designated for the Air Force and one for Navy test and evaluation.

“Demand for the system in theater right now is high, and it’s based on that performance,” Weaver said. “We’ve been making modifications to the system based on customer input for the last four or five years. We’ve made some hardware modifications that extended its range, and we’re constantly making software improvements to adapt to the specific threat environment, whether that be [unmanned aerial systems], from the smallest to the largest, and other potential threats that they face.”

Weaver said the company was “actively engaged at the headquarters level” with the Marine Corps and the Air Force about how best to employ G/ATOR and had recently begun engagements with the Army as well. While he deferred on saying whether the Army had interest in acquiring the radar system, he said its capabilities had broad appeal across the services.

“When you put a number of these systems in the field, operating in a complementary way, you can stay in constant movement and complicate the adversary’s target cycle,” Weaver said. “That is of interest to every service that’s currently in conflict right now. So, to the level that we’re engaged with the Army and the Air Force, it all comes back to its current performance and the agility that this advanced platform potentially offers.”

At 9,000 pounds, G/ATOR is small and light enough to be transported by C-130 Hercules or MV-22 Osprey aircraft. It can be set up and emplaced by a four-person crew in under ten minutes, and can flex in power settings from 60 kilowatts for medium-range targets to 75 kilowatts for longer-range kills. Initial fielding to the Marine Corps began in 2018, and service leaders have suggested more recently that they might soon expand their acquisition plan.

“We learned that it’s much more capable than we thought,” Brig. Gen. Christopher Haar, now commander of the 3rd Marine Logistics Group, told Military Times last December. “And now there’s a demand for us to get that in more units, and to potentially increase the number of those systems that we buy.”

The War Zone reported last month that the Corps’ Pacific-based 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit had employed the service’s Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) concept for the first time in combat during operations in support of the Operation Epic Fury conflict with Iran. It’s not clear if the G/ATOR system was part of that concept employment. But Weaver did suggest that the current conflict is highlighting its strengths.

With its lightweight footprint and capable 360-degree active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, the system, he said, can be flown into an austere location to establish an expeditionary air base, allowing the establishment of a surveillance perimeter while also enabling airspace control. According to the company, the system can identify launch points of hostile fires ranging from mortars to artillery and serve as a ground-based air traffic control manager. Drone warfare, Weaver said, brings out other strengths.

“It’s proving in recent conflicts and around the globe to perform exceptionally well in clutter, which makes it very helpful in identifying all classes of UASs and cruise missiles,” he said. “It’s not only providing awareness of what’s in the airspace around it at all altitudes. It provides weapons quality data and that performance, which means the warfighter can not only see it but also connect it to any available countermeasure that it has, whether that be kinetic or non-kinetic, and address it appropriately.”

诺斯罗普·格鲁曼公司新型多任务雷达系统部署进度已过半，赢得了海军陆战队领导人的高度赞扬。本月，官员们表示，继这一成功之后，包括美国陆军在内的其他潜在客户也对该系统表示了兴趣。

AN/TPS-80 地面/空中任务导向雷达（G/ATOR）是美国海军陆战队防御各种空中威胁（尤其是在太平洋沿岸地区）的解决方案。

它取代了五个较旧的雷达系统，去年进行了远程软件升级，提高了其性能，增强了其在空中区分敌我的能力。

10 月 7 日，诺斯罗普公司任务系统主管保罗·韦弗在与记者的电话会议上表示，该公司已交付海军陆战队订购的 60 套 G/ATOR 系统中的 43 套，其中 5 套指定给空军，1 套指定给海军进行测试和评估。

“目前战区对这套系统的需求很高，这都源于它出色的性能，”韦弗说。“过去四五年里，我们一直在根据客户的反馈对系统进行改进。我们进行了一些硬件升级，扩大了系统的有效范围，并且不断改进软件，以适应特定的威胁环境，无论是小型还是大型的无人机系统，以及它们面临的其他潜在威胁。”

韦弗表示，公司正与海军陆战队和空军总部积极探讨如何更好地运用G/ATOR系统，并且最近也开始与陆军接洽。虽然他没有明确表示陆军是否有意采购该雷达系统，但他表示，该系统的性能对各军种都具有广泛的吸引力。

韦弗说：“当你在战场上部署多个这样的系统，并以互补的方式运作时，你就可以保持持续的机动性，并扰乱敌方的目标周期。这对于目前处于冲突中的所有军种都至关重要。因此，就我们与陆军和空军的合作而言，一切都归结于该先进平台的当前性能及其潜在的敏捷性。”

G/ATOR 重量仅为 9,000 磅，体积小巧、重量轻，足以由 C-130 大力神运输机或 MV-22 鱼鹰倾转旋翼机运输。它可由四人操作组在十分钟内完成安装和部署，功率设置灵活，从用于中程目标的 60 千瓦到用于远程打击的 75 千瓦不等。海军陆战队于 2018 年开始初步装备该型武器，近期军方领导人暗示，他们可能很快会扩大采购计划。

“我们发现它的性能远超我们的预期，”现任第三海军陆战队后勤大队指挥官克里斯托弗·哈尔准将去年12月告诉《军事时报》，“现在我们面临着在更多部队中配备该系统的需求，而且我们可能需要增加此类系统的采购数量。”

《战区》上月报道称，驻扎在太平洋的海军陆战队第31远征部队在支援“史诗狂怒行动”的对伊冲突中，首次在实战中运用了该部队的远征前进基地作战（EABO）概念。目前尚不清楚G/ATOR系统是否参与了这一概念的运用。但韦弗确实暗示，当前的冲突凸显了该系统的优势。

他表示，该系统体积小巧，配备功能强大的360度有源相控阵雷达（AESA），可以空投到条件艰苦的地区，建立远征空军基地，从而建立监视圈并实现空域管制。据该公司称，该系统能够识别从迫击炮到火炮等各种敌方火力发射点，并可作为地面空中交通管制管理系统。韦弗表示，无人机作战还能展现该系统的其他优势。

他说：“在最近的冲突以及全球范围内，它已被证明在杂乱环境中表现卓越，这使得它在识别各类无人机和巡航导弹方面非常有用。它不仅能提供周围空域各个高度的态势感知，还能提供武器级数据和性能信息，这意味着作战人员不仅能看到目标，还能将其与任何可用的对抗措施（无论是动能的还是非动能的）联系起来，并进行相应的应对。”