US receives first Prophet Enhanced EW system

General Dynamics C4 Systems announced on 9 December that it has delivered the first Prophet Enhanced tactical signals intelligence (SIGINT) system to US military customers.

The Prophet Enhanced is a ground vehicle-based SIGINT and electronic warfare (EW) system intended for locating, tracking and identifying threat emitters in support of brigade- and division-level forces.

Prophet is a secretive programme; General Dynamics only describes it as equipment to enable tactical commanders to better see, hear and respond to ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) information throughout the networked battlespace.

Previous models of Prophet have been used in combat theatres and, while company representatives could not elaborate on upgrades to this 'enhanced' version for security reasons, General Dynamics did say it "enables more rapid integration of new technologies".

The first production Prophet Enhanced system was fitted into a BAE Systems Panther rapid-deployment command-and-control vehicle, according to the announcement. The Panther is an air-transportable tactical vehicle that incorporates mine and ballistic protection. It is based on the RG-33 mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicle but produced under the US Army's medium mine-protected vehicle programme: a longer-term effort to procure armoured platforms. Earlier Prophet variants have been integrated on Humvees and MRAPs.