France receives first upgraded M270 LRU

The first three upgraded Lockheed Martin M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRSs) have now been delivered to the French Army.

Speaking to IHS Jane's on 5 February, a spokesperson for the French Army said that the units had been delivered initially to the 6th Artillery Regiment, based at Gresswiller, and following testing are planned to enter operational service with the 1st Artillery Regiment in the second half of 2014.

France is upgrading its M270s to fire the 227 mm M31 high explosive (HE) unitary warhead Guided MLRS (GMLRS). This change was required following France's ratification of the Oslo Convention on Cluster Munitions in December 2008, which banned France's existing munitions for the M270. The upgraded system will be known as the Lance-roquette unitaire (LRU) in French service.

Originally possessing a fleet of 55 M270s, only 13 are receiving the upgrade to the LRU configuration, with the rest having been withdrawn from service.

The LRUs are currently undergoing testing by the French defence procurement agency (DGA) at Gresswiller. When this testing is completed, the DGA will transfer the first three systems to the 1st Artillery Regiment in March - which will be the sole operator of the LRU in French service. Following this, the Section Technique de l'Armée de Terre will conduct its own testing of the LRUs, including firing trials in Sweden, currently scheduled to occur in June.

According to a spokesperson for the French Army, Sweden was selected to host the firing trials as it "offers the adequate infrastructures, with the possibility to test this ground-to-ground equipment with a greater maximum range".

Compared with the earlier French MLRS rockets, which were armed with submunitions, the M31 features a single 90 kg HE warhead; includes GPS and inertial navigation system guidance to provide a circular error of probability of less than 10 m; and doubles the missile's range to 70 km.

A contract for the LRU upgrade was awarded by the DGA in September 2011, with a Franco-German consortium including team-leader Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, alongside Airbus Defence and Space, Sagem, and Thales. France is understood to have ordered around 200 M31 munitions for its LRUs. The remaining 10 LRUs will go through the same DGA/army testing process prior to their delivery.Nicholas de Larrinaga, London - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly