Arnold Defense™, the St Louis based manufacturer of 2.75-inch rocket launchers, will be at this year’s SOFIC exhibition taking place 20-23 May 2019 in Tampa, Florida. At the show, Arnold’s ground-based, laser guided rocket system, FLETCHER™, can be seen on the Navistar Defense booth (No. 1248) mounted on their SOTV-B vehicle.
The FLETCHER™ system, first unveiled in 2017 at DSEi in London, has since undergone highly successful test-firing and with a first customer order now secured, Arnold has commenced initial low-rate production. With FLETCHER™, Arnold Defense™ has extended the utility of their proven, highly capable rocket launcher from aviation platforms into the land environment. Using advanced rocket-guidance technology to meet the modern demands of land-based, mounted and dismounted asymmetric warfare, FLETCHER™ has been optimized for use by both special and conventional forces to provide surface-to-surface precision effect.
The wider concepts now being explored further expand FLETCHER’s™ utility into the arena of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV), naval and littoral platforms. The ability to mount FLETCHER™ on UGV will offer ground forces the capability to remotely support base or mobile defensive operations; giving considerably wider scope for the tactical siting of remotely operated, laser guided weapon systems, whilst significantly minimising exposure and risk to ground-based troops. Further to that, mounting FLETCHER™ on naval/littoral platforms will gift maritime troops a precision weapon system with a range of up to 5km that can be deployed and operated at a tactical level never previously available.
Jim Hager, President and CEO of Arnold Defense™ said “Since launching FLETCHER™ Arnold Defense™ has exhibited the system widely on the international market, where it has garnered significant interest world-wide, especially from special operations units. Our rocket launchers are already internationally well-established on airborne platforms, so transitioning into the land and marine environments with FLETCHER™ is a natural progression”. He added: “We recently announced the receipt of our first customer order for FLETCHER™ and we’re talking to a significant number of other users who we’re expecting to also place orders in the coming months. SOFIC is an ideal event to meet yet more potential buyers”.
