Großbritannien / USA

BAE Sys­tems Unveils New Mod­ern­ized How­itzer Vehi­cle to U.S. Army

YORK, Penn­syl­va­nia — BAE Sys­tems today unveiled its upgrad­ed PIM (Pal­adin Inte­grat­ed Man­age­ment) vehi­cle to mil­i­tary cus­tomers, Con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and employ­ees at a cer­e­mo­ny held at its York facil­i­ty. PIM is the next gen­er­a­tion how­itzer in the M‑109 Pal­adin fam­i­ly of vehi­cles, a com­bat proven weapon sys­tem man­u­fac­tured by BAE Sys­tems at York. 

“The mod­ern­iza­tion of the Pal­adin is a crit­i­cal step in pro­vid­ing the Army with a sus­tain­able and sup­port­able fleet of upgrad­ed vehi­cles,” said Joe McCarthy, vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Heavy Brigade Com­bat Team (HBCT) sys­tems for BAE Sys­tems. “The roll-out of our PIM sys­tem will ensure that the HBCT con­tin­ues to have the pre­mier Fire Sup­port Plat­form need­ed to sup­port the warfighter.”

BAE Sys­tems was award­ed a $63.9 mil­lion con­tract in August 2009 to pro­duce sev­en PIM vehi­cles: five Self Pro­pelled How­itzers and two Field Artillery Ammu­ni­tion Sup­port Vehi­cles.  Today’s roll-out intro­duces the first of the sev­en vehi­cles award­ed in that contract.

The PIM uses the exist­ing main arma­ment and cab struc­ture of a Pal­adin M109A6 and replaces the out-of-date chas­sis com­po­nents with up-to-date com­po­nents from Bradley Com­bat Sys­tems.  PIM incor­po­rates a state-of the-art “dig­i­tal back­bone” and robust pow­er gen­er­a­tion capa­bil­i­ty and inte­grates elec­tric ele­va­tion and tra­verse dri­ves, elec­tric ram­mer and dig­i­tal fire con­trol sys­tem.  The upgrade of the PIM ensures max­i­mum com­mon­al­i­ty with exist­ing sys­tems in the Heavy Brigade Com­bat Team (HBCT), and reduces its logis­ti­cal foot­print and oper­a­tional sus­tain­abil­i­ty costs by replac­ing obso­lete com­po­nents with­in the mobil­i­ty chassis.

The BAE Sys­tems Pal­adin Inte­grat­ed Man­age­ment vehi­cle is the first pro­duc­tion vehi­cle equipped with the company’s enhanced on-board pow­er man­age­ment capa­bil­i­ty, rep­re­sent­ing the first imple­men­ta­tion of the U.S. Army’s Com­mon Mod­u­lar Pow­er Sys­tem (CMPS) require­ment.  BAE Sys­tems enhanced on-board pow­er man­age­ment solu­tion will dou­ble the elec­tri­cal pow­er of most mil­i­tary vehi­cles, expo­nen­tial­ly increas­ing the mis­sion effec­tive­ness of ground forces in theatre.

Design and engi­neer­ing analy­sis work for the vehi­cle struc­ture, auto­mo­tive sys­tems and elec­tric and vehi­cle elec­tron­ics will be per­formed at the BAE Sys­tems facil­i­ties in Penn­syl­va­nia, Cal­i­for­nia, New York, Min­neso­ta and Michi­gan as well as U.S. Gov­ern­ment facil­i­ties at the Army Research and Devel­op­ment Cen­ter in Picatin­ny, New Jer­sey.  The reman­u­fac­ture for the Pal­adin fleet will be per­formed in part­ner­ship with the Annis­ton Army Depot in Alaba­ma and at BAE Sys­tems facil­i­ties in York, Penn­syl­va­nia and Elgin, Oklahoma.

About BAE Systems

BAE Sys­tems is the pre­mier glob­al defense, secu­ri­ty and aero­space com­pa­ny deliv­er­ing a full range of prod­ucts and ser­vices for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced elec­tron­ics, secu­ri­ty, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions and cus­tomer sup­port ser­vices. With approx­i­mate­ly 105,000 employ­ees world­wide, BAE Sys­tems’ sales exceed­ed £18.5 bil­lion (US $34.4 bil­lion) in 2008.

Source: BAE Systems