the new ERCA weapon is designed to hit ranges greater than 70km
Posted on 06/14/2018 12:24:13 PM PDT by C19fan
The Army is fast-tracking an emerging program to engineer a longer-range artillery cannon able to out range enemy ground forces by hitting targets at more than twice the distance of existing artillery.
The service is now prototyping an Extended Range Cannon Artillery weapons with a larger caliber tube and new grooves to hang weights for gravity adjustments to the weapon – which is a modified M777A2 mobile howitzer.
Existing 155m artillery rounds, fired with precision from mobile and self-propelled howitzer platforms, have a maximum range of about 30km; the new ERCA weapon is designed to hit ranges greater than 70km, Army developers said.
(Excerpt) Read more at themaven.net ...
Brilliant guy who loved big guns.
Played with the wrong guy one time and it cost him his life.
Now we need to bring back DPICM (Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition) ammunition because politicians decided that it was “too scary”. The Russians, of course, did not ban their DPICM munitions.
Guided missiles will always exceed these in range and especially accuracy, but not in economy. Also, blanketing an opponent's area of operation reduces the accuracy problem, but that tends to whittle down the economy advantage. Whatever works best in context makes the most sense, meaning, we need both.
The Russians had longer range guns during Vietnam, such that US naval vessels couldn't return fire, but that was less of an issue, apart from the occasional need for supporting fire for US landing craft (also unusual). I think the Russians tried to copy the crazy-long range big guns the Germans used in both world wars.
Bull's experiment on Barbados used 16 inch naval guns, sabots, fill-behind gas, finned projectile, no rifling, and eventually an extended barrel, and managed to shoot shells into space, but with a suborbital path. The research was to find out whether surveillance satellites could be launched en masse in a big hurry using cannon; never got there (and later research at LLL also failed). Also I wonder that anyone thought the satellites could have survived the boost to orbit.
“Now we need to bring back DPICM (Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition) ammunition because politicians decided that it was “too scary”.”
Interesting, hadn’t heard this previously. Back in the Stone Age when I went to FA Officer Basic, this was a favorite/preferred selection in the call for fire on certain targets. Never got to see it fired since it was expensive round. The LANCE missile system I eventually was assigned to had an HE round that was a cluster munition for area soft targets. My battery commander got to see it fired at White Sands and described it as very impressive.
the new ERCA weapon is designed to hit ranges greater than 70km
Meh “Bullfrog” Mattis seems more concerned about PC crap than killing the enemy.
Played with the wrong guy one time and it cost him his life.
He was brilliant. The elite establishment was foolish not to use that brilliance to the full.
Nice to see my old outfit, Yuma Proving Ground, being in the thick of this.
Lots of advantages to artillery vs. air power.
All improved conventional munitions contain “bomblets”, called sub munitions. These sub munitions have higher dud rates than other munitions. The left used this fact to attack these munitions in their campaign against mines on grounds of unintentional injuries to civilians. As they expected, and as they intended the Western armies banned or restricted these munitions. The Russians never did and the Left has not said a word about this situation.
From the Russian perspective, our technology for mines, artillery munitions, and bombs gave us a considerable advantage against the Cold War massive Soviet Army. They are beyond pleased with the unilateral disarmament by they old, and current, enemies. We are beyond stupid sometimes.
Meanwhile, the Russians have caught up with us and now they are the ones with a big advantage. Thank you Democrats.
Looks like it is just a rocket launch tube.
Excuse me while I wipe the soda pop from my monitor.
Ah, yes, the Princess Diana effect...forgot that the swallower of Arab swords was such a deep thinker about such things...LOL!
I love all of these “make the tube longer and outrange the enemy” articles: they seem to come in cycles.
1. Longer tubes shoot further but introduce more variables and therefore more error. End up with CEPs the size of Paris- see “Kaiser Wilhelm Geschutz”. Means that they would have to use $100K-per-shot guided rounds exclusively.
2. Extended range projos using larger RAP motors and/or ramjets take up the room used for HE or payloads. Therefore smaller effects at the business end. Just end up annoying the enemy.
3. Really long tubes are a bitch to transport; try taking a turn in a small village and see what happens.
The author of this piece really doesn’t know a lot about tube artillery. Such as spelling “breech” and “ muzzle brake”.
Lance!
I was in thhe 1/32 in Hanau from 1988-1990, before being bumped up to V Corps Artillery.
We got to go to Crete in the summers.
Did they mean RAP (Rocket Assisted Projectile) round? I don’t think a RAM-jet is feasible for artillery.
TTIWWP.
5.56mm
Same here. I don’t know WTF they’re talking about.
The navy developed ERGM for 5" guns decades ago with range over 50 miles, but the rounds would have been over $200k apiece I believe.
“Lots of advantages to artillery vs. air power.”
No question air power is great, but being available 24/7, artillery is like special mail delivery tailored to user needs. If in range, on call delivery is limited to shot time. And arty guys are like second-cousins to the infantry.
“Artillery; settling battlefield brawls since the 14th century”.
Other than what I read way back when, Gerald Bull was so focused on his craft that he lost sight of good guys-bad guys. Bad guys, not hampered by political oversight, were able to fund his research. One side or the other couldn’t let that stand.
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