Posted on 05/03/2008 5:41:20 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
American and Canadian troops have begun using the Excalibur shell in Afghanistan earlier this year. A year ago, American troops began using Excalibur in Iraq. This was just timely, because Islamic warriors tend to use civilians as human shields, and that means you have to be precise when you go after the bad guys with artillery. A typical situation has enemy gunmen holding out in one building of a walled compound or village. In nearby buildings, there are women and children. While killing the enemy is good, killing the civilians can be a very bad thing. Smart bombs should be able to fix this, except that sometimes one of the smaller smart bombs, the 500 pounder, has too much bang (280 pounds of explosives).
A 155mm artillery shell should do the trick (only 20 pounds of explosives each), but at long range (20 kilometers or more), some of these shells will hit the civilians. That's because at that range, an unguided 155mm shell can land up to 100 meters from where you aimed it. This is where Excalibur comes in handy. The GPS guided Excalibur shell falls within a ten meter circle (the middle of that circle being the "aim point") no matter what the range. After a year of use in Iraq, the troops find Excalibur invaluable for hitting just what you want to hit, and with a minimal amount of bang.
(Excerpt) Read more at strategypage.com ...
Just a thought. Wouldn’t “Excalibur” be a better name for a sub-launched missile?
Spiffy! Now, we just need Sol!
The war in Iraq has become a urban sniper battle. An excellent book on the subject is Trigger Men by Hans Halberstadt.
Another solution to the same problem has been used in Iraq. The GPS guidance on US missiles is so good that in some cases our planes have dropped concrete bombs. These bombs obviously don’t explode but they are a little rough on the mud brick buildings that are prevalent in Iraq. In some cases the targeted buildings have been completely destroyed while doing little or no damage to neighboring buildings.
The village elders in the valley concerned - aka Taliban Central - = and the Taliban gunmen firing from the houses, while routinely putting woman and children on the roofs to keep our troops from firing back in defense.
This little baby lets them target even just one corner of a room in a given house - leveling the playing field.
ABout frig*ing time!
I think that technique was pioneered in the first Gulf War, because Sadaam kept parking military vehicles next to historical sites he knew we wouldn't bomb.
But one thing not mentioned in this article is that this gps guided artillary is extremely cheap compard to precision bombing from a manned aircraft. This aspect changes our military tactics substantially.
They could have fired it from the Crusader
Pity the program was canceled...
Isn't it amazing? Technology has come full circle. We're essentially back to throwing rocks at the bad guys.
I couldn’t believe it when they retired the 175.What a truely amazing weapon it was.
By the time it was cancelled, the Crusader program was a fiasco.
Go on down to Tucson and order some for your own.... a data sheet is here....:^)
The Navy has a similar version for their 5 inch guns, but with an integral rocket to get 50+ miles range.
It was a work horse. Our FOB was about 25 km WSW of Hue. From there we could put rounds all the up to the Nth end of the A Shau.
Company D, 1st Battalion, 502d Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division (Airmobile)
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