Army’s new boomstick has got some legs!
I really hate to post this, because the perennial FIRST in the Weekend Open Thread KoB is going to be so excited he might get a priapism.
The Army’s Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) system under development hit a target 43 miles away — or 70 kilometers — on the nose at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, Dec. 19, using an Excalibur extended-range guided artillery shell, according to Brig. Gen. John Rafferty, who is in charge of the service’s Long-Range Precision Fires modernization.
“I don’t think our adversaries have the ability to hit a target on the nose at 43 miles,” Rafferty told a small group of reporters in a teleconference immediately following the test shot.
The Army has been in a race to extend artillery ranges on the battlefield in order to take away stand-off advantages of high-end adversaries like Russia. The ERCA cannon, when fielded, should be able to fire and take out targets from a position out of the range of enemy systems.
The ERCA cannon takes an M109A7 Paladin Integrated Management (PIM) howitzer chassis and replaces the 39-caliber gun tube with a 58-caliber, 30-foot one. Combined with Raytheon-made Excalibur munitions and an XM1113 using supercharged propellant, the Army has been able to dramatically boost artillery ranges.
In March this year, the Army inched closer to the ultimate goal of 70 kilometers when it took two shots, both reaching 65 kilometers in range.
In this test event, the Army took three shots. The first shot came up a bit short due to very high head winds at a high altitude and the second shot had a hardware failure, but the third shot proved that the service is getting closer to dialing in on the right balance between propellant, projectile design and other factors that play into achieving greater distances, according to Rafferty.
“This demonstration is not a destination,” Col. Tony Gibbs, the Army’s program manager for combat artillery system, told reporters. “This is really just a waypoint in our ongoing campaign of learning as we work to really realign U.S. supremacy in cannon artillery. It’s definitely a big knowledge point for us today.”
More details at the source. They expect to have the new system fielded by 2023. Thanks to Jeff LPH 3 for sending us this one.
Category: Army, Army News, Guest Link, Guns
One out of three rounds and they celebrate success?
Somewhere a Raytheon engineer has just been moved to Sales.
In theory, you learn something from each test. Bragging about it? Uhhh, not so impressive.
Heh. Failure is always an option, at least in the test world.
It’s how you gubbermint contractors stay in bizness, right?
Negative, Weed Whacker. It’s how I kept industry honest in meeting requirements.
You dodged a bullet, Mason. Our favorite Gun Bunny has been whisked away by family to attend Seasonal Festivities, and will be held incommunicado for the duration. He’ll be back soon enough, revitalized and brimming with piss and vinegar.
He is back, he is semi revitalized and his priapism is brimming with sumtin, but it ain’t piss…or vinegar. If the swellin’ doesn’t go away soon, he’s gonna rent the damn thing out as a coat rack. Or a pry bar.
hubba hubba and fapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfap
Interesting that right about the time the DoD will finally kills off the professional soldier, the systems necessary to win in the future will come online.
The future looks dark indeed.
65 Klicks?! That’s 40.4 Freedoms for those who’re metric system deniers.
I hope they’re remotely uncorking those, imagine being in that tin can when that goes off… might explain a thing-or-five about our certain someone. (said with love and respect. but still said!)
‘priapism’ didnt even have to look that up! Infantryman know what dat be. hahahaha
Would that be considered over-the-horizon?
Like most things, it depends.
*grin*
Aer we (you guys) talking about the Arty shell or the theoretical KoB’s priapism?
No “D” in that ERDAc-tile.
Big guns blowing shit up in the adjacent time zone are always cool! That being said, it will be a lot more impressive if all three in rapid succession land where they’re supposed to.
“But can they march?”
“March Order!!”
Want to see a gun line jump? Yell that or “Fire Mission!” at 0230. Doesn’t matter how many are awake, its better than a triple espresso and looks like a poked anthill.
Excalibur?
Isn’t that the “high precision” round that costs 1 million dollars a piece and can only take out one room in a house?
Not impressed.
How far can they shoot a HE APICM (high explosive anti-personel improved convetional munition)?
It looks like a standard 155mm with a slightly upgraded tube and souped-up version of a shell we already deploy so… 25km? Give or take. Unfortunately, ICM usage is “discouraged” in this era of kinder, gentler warfare, or at least it was when I went through BOLC almost a decade ago. There were rumors that we were rebuilding our stockpiles, but I can neither confirm nor deny.
Frankly, I’m just happy we have SOMETHING that can outrange the Russians. Our artillery, for all its bells and whistles, is not known for range. Speed and accuracy yes, so long as GPS and AFATDS don’t go down, but not range.
The answer to your question is no.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M982_Excalibur
My biggest worry is that we’ll make the same mistake the Germans made in the last big war: try to innovate our way to victory at the expense of massed fire capability. Precision is all well and good, but as the Krauts learned to their sorrow, slow and precise loses hard to longer range mail addressed “to whom it may concern.” It says a lot that the Wermacht rearmed with captured Soviet guns in no small part because of how much those guns outranged their own. Artillery only needs to be so precise: it’s an area effect weapon for a reason. If you want precision we have MLRS, HIMARS, air, and a host of other platforms that can deliver. I’d rather have a lot of guns that can throw large masses of metal long ranges at short notice cheaply than a few guns that can hit one room of a house once every fifteen minutes.
The Germans were just plain out-produced. With us building tens of thousands of planes, tanks, and artillery on the one side and the Russians with tens of millions of men on the other. That’s a lesson we should be worried about right now. In any conflict with China, they’re poised to have us well and truly outnumbered and could likely out-produce us.
“Artillery Divisions”
Russian doctrine gave new scale to “massed guns” .
M777 can shoot 6 rounds a min for the 1st 2 mins, then shoot 4 rounds per min after. Otherwise the barrel will over heat and warp. Now, they just have to extend the barrel from 39 caliber to 58.
Looking forward to outranging Russian and Chinese guns for once. With M982 Excalibur, Probable Error in Range is less than 10 meters, way better than with M549 He Rap.
didn’t most of the 777s deployed to Syria shoot their barrels out?