Elusive targets: Navy in pursuit of smart weapons for five-inch guns.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Extended range guided munition

At a time when high-tech precision weapons are commonplace throughout the military services, the Navy concedes that one of its flagship efforts to equip the fleet with extended range, "smart" five-inch shells so far has failed.

The program known as "extended range guided munition," or ERGM, was intended to produce a satellite-guided projectile that would be fired from five-inch guns aboard surface combatant ships. But 12 years and $2 billion into the project, the Navy has decided to Start over.

While Navy officials acknowledge the effort has been disappointing, they insist that fleet commanders need this technology, and that the project must continue.

"We know the technology is feasible," said Rear Adm. Charles Bush, Navy program executive officer for integrated warfare systems. The Navy awarded a contract to the Raytheon Company in 1996 to develop and produce ERGM, and the initial schedule called for the round to enter service in 2004. After technical hurdles surfaced in 1999, an independent assessment of the program by MIT Lincoln Labs concluded that both the Navy and the contractor had underestimated the complexity of the technology.

The ERGM projectile, although no longer funded by the Navy, continues to undergo tests at the Raytheon Company, and is expected to be one of the candidates in an upcoming competition for a five-inch "extended range munition."

The Navy believes that, by reopening the program to new competitors, it can get better technology at a lower cost, Bush said in an interview with military reporters. "There's been a lot of failures," he said. Navy officials had estimated ERGM would cost $60,000 to $100,000 per unit, depending on the quantities produced. Bush said the price tag should not exceed $50,000.

The ERGM round, which has a global positioning system satellite receiver, works like a missile, hitting targets as far away as 40 miles. The weapon experienced difficulties in the early stages of development, because the sensitive electronics could not survive a gun launch l 5,000 times stronger than gravity. "It's a difficult thing to do, am electronics in the muzzle of a gun, and for the electronics to work," Bush said.

For the upcoming competition, Alliant Techsystems will be proposing a different type of guided round, which the company claims is less complex and less costly than ERGM.

Alliant's concept is technologically simpler, said Thomas R. Wilson, vice president for precision weapons at Alliant Techsystems. The...