Pre-development The concept of a conventional tactical ballistic missile was made possible by the doctrinal shift of the late
Cold War, which rejected the indispensability of an early nuclear strike on the
Warsaw Pact forces in the event the Cold War went hot. The
AirLand Battle and
Follow-on Forces Attack doctrines, which emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, necessitated a conventional-armed (hence much more accurate) missile to strike enemy reserves, so the
United States Army Aviation and Missile Command sponsored the Simplified Inertial Guidance Demonstrator (SIG-D) program. with a new
RLG-based
inertial guidance package, which demonstrated unprecedented accuracy.
Development Development of the missile now known as ATACMS started in 1980, when the
US Army decided to replace the Lance with a similar nuclear, but also chemical or biological, tipped solid-fuel missile dubbed the Corps Support Weapon System (CSWS). Concerned that two branches were developing too many similar missiles with different warheads, the
Department of Defense merged the program with DARPA's Assault Breaker in 1981, and with
United States Air Force (USAF)'s Conventional Standoff Weapon (CSW) in 1982–1983. – using
conventional or
nuclear weapons on the
battlefield. Although both services were to participate in the development of the weapon, it was the US Army who led the JTACMS program. The program was initially led by Colonel James B. Lincoln, who was a full-time and continuous student at numerous military schools (from 1960, when he graduated from the
United States Military Academy, until 1980, when he graduated from the
Industrial College of the Armed Forces), in 1977 on the basis of
Defense Systems Management College graduated with a
thesis of "Managing Total Acquisition Time: A New Priority for Major Weapon Systems", where, in particular, he focused on the significant decrease in the pace of procurement of the main missile complexes compared to 1971 and in 1980, heading the
TRADOC program at
Fort Sill in the direction of
MLRS, spoke rather defiantly about field army systems, where, in particular, he compared the struggle of the US Army for limited resources during the development of new systems with
bow wave, which prevents the ship from accelerating, and military projects are either canceled or refinanced by the state, with waves diverging from it, and was noticed by
DARCOM. In April 1984, he was transferred to be the head of the
TOW project, and in the current project he was replaced by Colonel William J. Fiorentino, who by that time had already been the head of the
Pershing Project Manager's Office for more than 5 years, which during his leadership developed two-stage solid fuel
mobile-launched ballistic missiles with a nuclear warhead both
short (
Pershing) and
medium (
Pershing II) ranged. Dr. Billy Tidwell who was program manager during JTACMS while and Acting Program Manager for a short period. In FY 1984 Congress prohibited the development of a nuclear warhead for JTACMS, despite the Army claiming it could place US forces at a disadvantage if it became necessary to make the system nuclear-capable. In FY 1985 the Army denied having R&D funds programmed for the development of a JTACMS nuclear warhead. On May, 22nd, 1984 the US Army and USAF signed an agreeing on a list of 31 initiatives. Item 18 on that list states about services will develop a different types of same rocket for each of it – preferences for Army was a development of shorter-ranged ground-launched system, for air-force – air-launched system. JTACMS was intended to be a jointly funded program with NATO allies; the
United Kingdom,
Federal Republic of Germany,
Belgium,
the Netherlands and
Italy were initially contacted about joining the program, with the British and Germans expressing interest, while the others declined due to lacking adequate funds.
Production In March 1986, Ling-Temco-Vought won the contract for the missile design. The system was assigned the MGM-140 designation. The first test launch came two years later, thanks to earlier experience of the company with previous programs. In 2007, the US Army terminated the ATACMS program due to cost, ending the ability to replenish stocks. To sustain the remaining inventory, the ATACMS Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) was launched, which refurbishes or replaces propulsion and navigation systems, replaces
cluster munition warheads with the unitary
blast fragmentation warhead, and adds a
proximity fuze option to obtain area effects. Deliveries were projected to start in 2018. The ATACMS SLEP is a bridging initiative to provide time to complete analysis and development of a successor capability to the aging ATACMS stockpile, which could be ready around 2022. The
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 authorized the production and procurement of up to 1,700 additional ATACMS, but this was not funded by the 2023 Defense Appropriations Act.
Stockpile upgrades In January 2015, Lockheed Martin received a contract to develop and test new hardware for Block I ATACMS missiles to eliminate the risk of unexploded ordnance by 2016. Lockheed was awarded a production contract for launch assemblies as part of the SLEP in August 2017. In 2021, Lockheed Martin was contracted to upgrade existing M39 munitions to the M57 variant with a WDU-18/B warhead from the
Harpoon missile by 2024. A plan announced in October 2016 to add an existing seeker to enable the ATACMS to strike moving targets on land and at sea was terminated in December 2020 to pursue other missile efforts.
Replacement Starting in 2016, the
Long-Range Precision Fires (LRPF) program began to be developed, which was later renamed
Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), with the idea of replacing ATACMS missiles with the "Increment 1" phase (version) of PrSM. PrSM Increment 1 missiles began delivery in late 2023. == Versions ==