The U.S. Army gradually plans to modernize its field artillery systems, in
an effort to replace aging platforms and introduce advanced technology. In anticipation
of increased spending on new weaponry, companies have in recent months unveiled
a number of technologies targeting future Army and Marine Corps needs.
A case in point is a new 105 mm self-propelled howitzer just entering the marketplace.
General Dynamics Land Systems, of Sterling Heights, Mich., and South African’s
Denel (Pty) Ltd., recently demonstrated the howitzer—which consists of
a Denel gun turret mounted on one of GDLS’s LAV III light armored vehicles—to
Army and Marine Corps officers and representatives from Britain, Canada, and
Australia.
The 17.5-ton howitzer was fired first on the beach at Eglin Air Force Base,
Fla., the site of the Air Armament Center. The targets, measuring six by eight
feet, were located deep over the horizon in the Gulf of Mexico. Eglin has 133,000
square miles of water ranges in the gulf that are used for weapons testing.
Then, the gun was loaded into a C-130, flown to Fort Sill, Okla., site of the
Army’s Field Artillery School, and fired again. For safety reasons, the
weapon was fired remotely, controlled from a nearby bunker.
The howitzer can pump out eight rounds a minute in indirect fire at targets
up to 30 kilometers away, said James D. Vickrey, director of GDLS artillery
programs, to reporters at the Eglin demonstration. The projectiles are loaded
automatically from an internal 32-round magazine, reducing the crew size to
no more than three members, he said.
A variety of rounds are available, including smoke, illumination, high-explosive,
and pre-formed fragment versions, Vickrey noted. Each category produces its
own useful effect, he said.
For nighttime operations, the illumination round “lights up the whole
world,” but “the big killer” is the PFF, he said. It sprays
thousands of tungsten balls wherever it hits. That “pretty much wipes
out a soccer field,” he said. “This is not your father’s 105.”
GDLS spent $5 million of its own funds on the project, and teamed up with Denel
in October 2003 to develop the demonstration model, Vickrey said. Denel is a
major producer of long-range artillery systems.
GDLS officials said the demonstrator could be adapted to the future combat
systems that the Army is developing to replace its current family of armored
vehicles. Plans call for the FCS to include five varieties of manned ground
vehicles, including a non-line-of sight cannon. GDLS is teamed with United Defense
LP, of Arlington, Va., to design the future combat vehicles.
In 2003, United Defense demonstrated a 155 mm non-line-of-sight cannon, featuring
a modified version of the M777 lightweight, towed howitzer.
The 105 mm weapon also could be placed atop a variation of the Stryker eight-wheeled,
armored combat vehicles that GDLS is building for the Army, company officials
asserted.
The mortar carrier variant of the Stryker includes a 60 mm weapon and a 120
mm version. Mortars fire indirectly, high over obstacles to hit relatively close
targets.
The Army currently doesn’t have a requirement for a 105 mm self-propelled
howitzer, said Lt. Col. Greg Kraak, chief of Futures Integration at the Field
Artillery Center at Fort Sill. But the Army is interested in learning about
the capabilities of the GDLS system, he told reporters at Eglin. “What
appeals to us is that the fact that it can be loaded on a C-130.”
The Army’s current self-propelled howitzer is the M109A6 Paladin 155
mm, the most recent version of a 40-year-old design. The Paladin—built
by United Defense—weighs 32 tons, nearly twice the weight of the GDLS
demonstrator, and requires a large aircraft—a C-5 Galaxy or C-17 Globemaster—for
transport.
The Paladin’s heft makes it difficult to deploy rapidly in response to
fast-breaking regional crises. Heavy artillery can be deployed by ship, but
the process takes weeks and sometimes months.
The Army had planned to replace the Paladin with the Crusader, another 155
mm self-propelled howitzer from United Defense. Its weight had been trimmed
down to less than 40 tons, light enough to fit two into a single C-17. Pentagon
leaders, however, decided that the Crusader still was too heavy, and in 2002
cancelled the program.
The services are planning the next generation of artillery to fit inside the
C-130, officials explained. In part, this is because the C-130—unlike
other transports—can land on rough, dirt fields as short as 1,400 feet.
The C -17 requires 3,000 feet, and the C-5 needs 4,900 feet.
The Air Force has far more C-130s than of the other two transports. At last
count, the service had 126 C-5s and 113 C-17s. It plans to increase its number
of C-17s to 180 by 2008. By comparison, the Air Force has more than 500 C-130s.
With those numbers, Kraak said, “we’ll continue to tap the C-130s.”
The Army has two C-130-transportable artillery pieces. Both are towed, not
self-propelled, and both are aging. They are the M198 155 mm medium howitzer,
made by the Rock Island Arsenal, in Illinois, and the M119A1 105 mm originally
designed by the United Kingdom’s Royal Ordnance.
The U.S. Army and Marines intend to replace their 25-year-old M198s with BAE’s
M777, a 155 mm towed howitzer that began low-rate initial production in 2003.
During that same year, it test-fired the M777 with the XM982 Excalibur GPS inertial
navigation-guided projectile. Excalibur is designed to provide precision-strike
capability for artillery, with 10-meter accuracy at a maximum range of 40 kilometers.
The M119A1, which was first fielded to the Army in 1989, also is coming to
the end of its service life in coming years, Kraak said. “We’re
going to have to find a replacement for it.” The Army,” he said,
is “looking at a number of systems.”
Among the new technologies now being marketed to the Army is United Defense’s
variable-volume chamber cannon, called the 105 mm V2C2. In February, United
Defense test-fired the V2C2 using a 105 mm round and a 155 mm modular charge.
The weapon can be integrated with a 20-ton class combat vehicle or configured
as a towed platform, said Jim Unterseher, UDLP’s Army program director.
“We believe this cannon system offers a cost-effective 105 mm solution
for the Army field artillery,” he said.
The variable volume chamber allows the Army to use the M231 and M232 modular
artillery charge system that is already in its inventory. That would enable
artillery units to employ only one family of propellants for 105 mm and 155
mm systems.
In March, United Defense signed an agreement to lead marketing efforts in the
United States for Giat Industries’ Caesar 155 mm self-propelled howitzer,
originally built for the French Army. The Caesar, which is mounted on a 6 x
6 truck, is C-130 transportable, said Tom Rabaut, president and CEO of United
Defense. The agreement with Giat “has the potential for United Defense
to produce the howitzer system for United States requirements,” he added.