Philippines developing remote weapon station for naval vessels

The Philippines is developing its own remote weapon station (RWS) for potential use on its warships and patrol vessels.

The RWS is being developed by the Philippine Navy (PN), the Department of Science and Technology’s Metals Industry Research and Development Centre, and the Mechatronics and Robotics Society of the Philippines.

An AN/M2 .50 cal machine gun mounted on the RWS being developed by the Philippines for fitting onto its naval vessels. (Via Philippine DND)

Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana soft-launched the project, which is called ‘Building a Universal Mount for Heavy-Barrel Automated Weapon Integration’ (BUHAWI), on 7 January at the Force Reconnaissance Firing Range, Marine Base Gregorio Lim, in Ternate, Cavite, near Manila.

The project is aimed at enabling accurate firing of the M2 .50 cal machine gun from the RWS on various PN vessels.

The Philippines is developing this new RWS (seen here mounting an AN/M2 machine gun) to enable accurate firing of .50 cal machine guns from its warships and patrol vessels. (Via Philippine DND)

“Apart from the obvious practical gains this project can give to the Philippine Navy, Project BUHAWI embodies the true spirit of the Self-Reliance Defense Posture Programme (SRDP) of the department.

“We, at the DND [Department of National Defense], believe that the SRDP is the key towards having a truly patriotic and independent defence sector through the self-manufacture of original and indigenous defence materiel which are products of Filipino ingenuity and produced by our people’s labour and industry,” Lorenzana said in a press release issued by his office.