Raytheon to launch BattleGuard at US Army 2012 Maneuver Conference

Raytheon will launch its newly developed BattleGuard modular weapon system for combat vehicles at the US Army 2012 Maneuver Conference currently taking place at the Columbus Convention and Trade Center in the state of Georgia.

Featuring a weapon station, the integrated electro-optical infrared (EO/IR) and visible sensor has been designed to enable accurate target identification at ranges beyond maximum effective range of the vehicles, which is double compared with competing technologies.

Glynn Raymer, Raytheon Network Centric Systems business Combat and Sensing Systems vice president, said the BattleGuard would serve as a cost-effective, low-risk system for combat vehicles to help augment the commander's mission capability.

"The significance to the commander is the plug-and-play nature of the system," he said. "It is easy and fast to change configuration, to take off and put on another device, providing additional and immediate vehicle and squad protection."

The modular system is primarily engineered for tracked and wheeled combat vehicles, and offers trained operators with 360° under armour unobstructed coverage.

A high-performance second or third generation forward looking infrared (FLIR) is also incorporated in the Battleguard to facilitate classification, recognition and identification of stationary and moving targets beyond the maximum effective ranges of threat weapons.

Battleguard supports a wide range of military light machine guns (LMGs) and chain guns, such as the M249, M240, M2, MK-19, MK-47, M134, and the M230LF chain gun automatic cannon.

In addition, the system will also support a number of hard or soft-launch missiles, including the Griffin, Javelin, Stinger and TOW anti-tank missile.