M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System

The M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System, usually shortened to M270 MLRS, is an American armored, tracked and self-propelled rocket launcher built on a lengthened Bradley Fighting Vehicle chassis. It grew out of the General Support Rocket System requirement that the US Army set in the mid-1970s to answer Soviet rocket artillery, and in May 1980 the Army chose the Vought prototype over a Boeing rival. Vought began low-rate production in early 1982, and the first units reached the 1st Infantry Division in 1983. The launcher carries two pods holding either twelve rockets or two ATACMS guided missiles and can fire them in under a minute before it moves away to avoid counter-battery fire. About 1,300 systems were built in the United States and Western Europe, it first saw combat in the 1991 Gulf War, and it has since been upgraded to fire guided rockets and used in Ukraine.