Arlington, VA, 13 May 2015 – Thales has recently been selected to provide the U.S. Army with Rifleman Radio systems. This award, under a ten-year (five-year base with five-year option) indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, will allow Thales to compete for the different orders of the program.
The selection is for the Rifleman Radio Full Rate Production (FRP) program, also part of the U.S. Army’s Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Handheld, Manpack and Small-form Fit (HMS) program. The Army’s projected contract cost through 2025 for radios, accessories, technical support and sustainment, will not exceed $3.9 billion.
The Army’s acquisition strategy is to compete individual delivery orders following qualification testing. Testing will be performed on radios delivered under the initial delivery order. Qualified radios are expected to begin being fielded in 2017.
Thales’ enhanced AN/PRC-154A Rifleman Radio is the most advanced, fielded, and proven soldier radio on the market, delivering voice and data simultaneously. It provides secure, inter-squad, networked communications and situational awareness to the soldier at the tactical edge of the battlefield, improving mission effectiveness.
Thales has been involved in the development and fielding of the Rifleman Radio since 2004 under Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP). The Army has procured more than 21,000 radios to date under the LRIP.
Thales has leveraged over two decades of handheld radio design experience in its latest Rifleman Radio solution, which exceeds the original program requirements by improving battery life, mission weight, and waveform performance while also enhancing the user interface.
Tags: Thales
I think that the AN/PRC 152 (Falcon III) radio is the most amazing handheld radio to date.
If Thales is just cutting some weight and down sizing it to be a smaller general issue radio – well I bet that will be a winner!!!
Looks to have less options at a glance than the Harris Falcon III, but maybe that’ll be good for the average guy. I’d be interested to see how this will effect radio pouch procurement…
It will be some craptastic pouch.
152 is Harris. 148 is a Thales. Or mbitar. Or something like that spelling. But the 148 sucked. I could talk to the guy at the front of the unit. But I couldn’t talk to the guy next to me. Hence why I carried a 152 for all fires and well anything. And the 148 was internal unit only.
I agree. AND Harris is a US company. Thales is French owned I believe.
Thales is a french company. But they have a decent US presence.
You are absolutely correct, and I have used some of their products successfully. I’m biased towards Harris because they are based in my hometown and both my sister and father-in-law design and build those radios. It’s nice to use something like that. I also just think they are better.
This is a good and bad thing. On the plus side, if used properly there’s better awareness at the squad level.
On the other hand, micromanagement just got a whole lot easier.
Fielded the 2013 version of these at Drum, it looks like they made some changes from feedback. Hopefully they work better than the ones we tested!
Yeah, I sure love a radio that takes 10+ seconds to change channels, and requires a button push followed by a Siri-esque voice telling me in robot speech what channel it is on or how much battery life is left. Radios don’t need any tactile or visual feedback. DUMBEST. RADIO. EVER…
On second glance, it looks like Thales has added a lcd/tft screen of some sort so that is a good step compared to the ones we got late last year, but it still lacks a volume and channel knob. I’m sure it still is incapable of transmitting when it drops fill so coming up on guard freq in an emergency or transmitting that you’ve lost fill in the clear is still a no go. We have taken to calling these things the “Fisher Price Radios”.
Harris 152A radios are better in every way from what I’ve seen of these things in their rollout since last Oct. These things are just a way for DOD to hold onto the TDP and save money by not paying Harris. It’s even worse with the water heater, I mean hot plate, I mean AN/PRC 155 compared to the incredibly capable Harris 117G
Reminds me of the firefly cell phones for children lol.
Fielded the CS14 version of this radio at Campbell. Absolutely terrible. Sure am glad the FSR who told me “only a fool needs a screen on their radio” was wrong.
Still worthless to me, can’t talk to aircraft on SWR, give me my 152 back.