U.S. Army Orders Advanced Manpack & Leader Radios to Equip Soldiers

L3Harris Technologies has received new full-rate production orders for its AN/PRC-163 Leader and AN/PRC-158 Manpack radios from the U.S. Army under the Handheld, Manpack & Small Form Fit (HMS) program.

These tactical radios will equip the U.S. Army with advanced, resilient communication capabilities, enhancing soldier mobility and mission effectiveness.

The modern, cryptographic-compliant L3Harris AN/PRC-158 and AN/PRC-163 radios meet the latest NSA encryption and decryption standards for Communication Security and Transmission Security. They can switch between Secure But Unclassified – Encrypted (SBU-E) and high-assurance encryption levels, allowing interoperability with coalition partners.

The latest order, totaling nearly $300 million, continues the expansion of resilient communication solutions for U.S. soldiers, ensuring seamless interoperability across tactical and aerial tiers even in adversarial electronic warfare environments.

This award follows similar production orders from 2023 totaling more than $247 million under the same IDIQs. Additionally, L3Harris was selected by the Army to deliver Mobile User Objective System-capable AN/PRC-158s for the service’s MQ- 1C Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft systems and the CH-47 Chinook rotary-wing fleet as part of the Air-to-Ground Networking Radio program.

Sam Mehta, President of Communication Systems at L3Harris, commented, “Effective, resilient communication dictates the operations tempo, and our solutions support the required comms-on-the-move to enable Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control. Our battle-proven resilient communications systems deliver the latest capabilities to keep pace with the emerging threats on the modern battlefield, providing commanders greater flexibility.”