Javelin anti-tank missiles can destroy
armored vehicles from two to three miles
away. Tow missiles can hit enemy tanks
from about two miles and an apache fired
hellfire can attack and destroy enemy
tanks from roughly four miles away. But what about anti-armor artillery able
to track and destroy enemy armored
vehicles from 30 kilometers. How about 70
kilometers? This is the intent of the
army's fast evolving hit to kill shaped
charge 155 millimeters round engineered
to bring new armor penetrating explosive
characteristics to precision artillery
attack.
Army artillery particularly with gps and
inertial measurement unit guided as
caliber rounds are not only fast
developing an ability to change course
in flight to destroy otherwise hidden or
obscured targets, but can also
increasingly draw upon various
innovations to destroy moving targets as
well.
In order to have lethality against
heavily armored targets you need the
shaped charge and a target seeking
capability. The shaped charge effort to
destroy enemy tanks on the move which
rafferty said will test fire later this
year is enabled by the shape trajectory
technology program which draws upon new
course correcting guidance systems to
redirect course in flight and destroy
targets on the back side of a mountain
or under a bridge. With the shape trajectory we have been
pushing incrementally up to higher
chamber pressures, Rafferty Explained.
Building upon this course correcting
technology the shaped charge involves
new technical applications in the realm
of what's called energetics a word to
describe explosive effects. we took a standard 155 and took the
unitary warhead out which explodes as
fragments. We replaced it with a shaped charge, instead of a spray out of projectiles it
can defeat armored vehicles by putting a
hot jet through metal sean ball
excalibur business development leg, Raytheon told me in an interview last
year.
Also to extend possibilities even
further the army has recently
demonstrated that its extended range
cannon artillery program can destroy
targets as far away as 70 kilometers. Using a longer tube and newer kinds of
firing technologies, army and industry
innovators have already doubled the
range of existing precision guided
artillery with airca. As caliber already draws upon new
technologies to pinpoint targets to
within one meter of accuracy. A measure
of precision expected to be sustained at
the longer ranges enabled by erica. Combined arms allows us to close with
and destroy an enemy it requires armor
consistency and combat aviation to work
together in a synchronized fashion.
If we lose this synchronization we are
far less lethal, if an enemy has range he
can separate the combined arms team. our adversaries have watched us and
learned how we figh.t they have invested
in areas to offset our advantage, Rapidly
told me in a previous interview.
Perhaps drones discover enemy tanks
closing in for attack fast approaching
striking ranges, traditional artillery, less capable of
hitting moving targets and of course
less capable of achieving a Javelin-like
armor-piercing effect would most likely
not be equipped to respond successfully. Until now imagine what it might bring to
land war combined arms if the army could
add a tank killing precision guided
course correcting artillery round able
to strike at 30 or even 70 kilometers. This seemingly impossible prospect is
now realistic.
