Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CROWS with an M240 machine gun

The Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station is a remotely controlled weapon station ( RWS - Remotely controlled Weapons Station) that can be mounted on vehicles or fixed platforms. C ommon R emotely O perated W eapon S tation (German about common remote controlled weapon station ) is also known under the abbreviation CROWS . The main user of the CROWS is the US Army .

The CROWS offers the possibility of target acquisition and combat from the vehicle without having to leave the associated protection of the armor. Various weapons such as the 40 mm Mk 19 machine grenade launcher , the Browning M2 heavy machine gun or the M240 or M249 machine guns can be mounted on the CROWS .

Suppliers of the CROWS

The first supplier of the CROWS was Recon Optical (Illinois, USA) with the product RAVEN SRWS .

After a tender for the successor system, the contract was awarded to the Norwegian company Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace . It won the tender for the CROWS II with a variant of the already introduced Protector M151 , which is already used in the Stryker armored vehicle . Kongsberg thus received a framework agreement for the delivery of up to 6,500 systems, an order value of over one billion US dollars, and for the delivery of a first tranche for 300 million US dollars.

specification

A convoy of MRAP vehicles equipped with CROWS-II stations

The CROWS consists of two parts: a holder for the weapons and sensors, which is attached to the outside of the vehicle, and the operating station inside the vehicle. The directional range of the mount is 360 ° to the side and −20 ° to + 60 ° in height.

The sensor equipment includes a day vision camera , a thermal imaging device for night use and a laser range finder . These data are fed to the fire control system, which also carries out the ballistic correction. The weight of the weapon station depends on the selected and equipped weapon and the version of the CROWS and ranges between 74 and 172 kg.

See also

Web links

Commons : CROWS (RWS)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Recon / Optical Inc .: Crows ( Memento from August 11, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ US GAO - B-310436; B-310436.2, Recon Optical, Inc., December 27, 2007
  3. ^ Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace ( Memento from February 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ XM101 Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS)