USMC to buy Smart Shooter fire control for interim capability

The US Marine Corps plans to buy 84 kits of the Smart Shooter 2000L for a C-UAS capability for dismounted forces. (Janes/Meredith Roaten)

After reprogramming at least USD10 million from its air-defence portfolio, the US Marine Corps (USMC) is buying 84 kits of Smart Shooter fire-control system SMASH 2000L as an interim capability for its dismounted counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UASs) requirement, a service official told Janes on 30 April.

While the requirement has not been officially approved, the urgent release has been approved for at least those systems, with an additional USD50 million possibly being freed up in the coming months, Major Jason Dempsey, C-UAS and ground-based air-defence (GBAD) capabilities integration officer, told Janes on the sidelines of the Modern Day Marine conference in Washington, DC. A requirement is still taking shape while the interim capability is fielded, he said.

“A guaranteed USD10 million [is] going to an interim solution for the next two years, and then when that FY 27 [fiscal year 2027] money drops with my requirement and my money, I give it over to this programme office, and they will build me or buy me a capability that meets my requirement documents,” he said.

SMASH optics uses image processing to acquire a target from a weapon sight's field-of-view (FOV) and then places a box around the target in the shooter's reflex sight. A switch on the weapon's forestock enables a shooter to select and lock on to a target. The weapon will then fire only when the sight is aligned to hit the target, which helps prosecute extremely small, fast targets, said Maj Dempsey. This has become especially important with the proliferation of first-person view (FPV) UAS.