UK forces receive 1,360 MMRs as part of LETacCIS

L3 Harris AN/PRC-163 multichannel handheld radios will make up part of an MMR delivery announced in December 2025 to the British Armed Forces. (Janes/Christopher Petrov)

Users across all three services of the UK's armed forces have received 1,360 multimode radios (MMRs) as part of the Land Environment Tactical Communication and Information Systems (LETacCIS) programme, a defence source confirmed to Janes on 17 December.

The MMRs are now in service, the source added without going into detail on how the radios were distributed across the three services. The MMR capability replaces Tactical Satellite (TacSat) radios for dismounted roles only, specifically the PRC-117F, PRC-152, and the PRC-152A, according to the source. The MMR capability was formally accepted in September and is “now a core asset, fully supported through life”, according to a 15 December British Army post online. The outdated radios have been replaced by L3Harris' AN/PRC-167 and AN/PRC-163 systems as part of the MMR programme, as previously reported by Janes.

The AN/PRC-163 was developed to support secure two-channel, simultaneous up-and-down echelon connectivity, cross-banding capability, interoperability, and redundancy in a handheld form factor. Both channels are allocated as low and high band and overlapping ultra-high frequency (UHF) and satellite communications (satcom) availability, according to Janes C4ISR & Mission Systems: Land. The AN/PRC-163 can also be used for combinations of satcom, very-high frequency (VHF)/UHF line-of-sight (LOS), and mobile ad hoc network (MANET) applications, according to Janes.

The AN/PRC-167 Falcon IV is a two-channel manpack radio that covers the 30–2,600 MHz frequency range, according to Janes C4ISR & Mission Systems: Land. It is capable of simultaneously supporting a variety of specialist waveforms for LOS, satellite-based, MANET, and low probability of intercept/detection communications.