French Firm Seeks to Fill Gap in U.S. Fire Support.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.

The absence of self-propelled artillery platforms in the U.S. Army's newly-formed brigades has prompted a French manufacturer to offer a 155 mm truck-mounted artillery gun as a possible alternative. The system also is being marketed to the U.S. Marine Corps and the Royal Malaysian Army.

Called Caesar, the weapon was designed to provide rapid fire support for a battalion-size unit, without the hassles associated with towed howitzers, said Woodson A. Sadler Jr., a retired U.S. Marine colonel and a consultant to Giat Industries, the manufacturer of Caesar. Five systems were sold to the French Army last year, and they are expected to be delivered next month.

"It's a French design, but we are looking at American companies to help with the production," Woodson said in an interview. If U.S. military agencies decided to buy Caesar, "it would be produced partly in the United States."

The primary role of Caesar is to provide hit-and-run artillery fire on a platform that can move fast (about 65 mph) and keep up with the light armored vehicles in the unit, said William Sidgwick, manager of business development at Giat Industries. "You can get the artillery in position fast, fire six rounds and leave, all in less than three minutes," he said.

Caesar can operate autonomously, with its own inertial navigation unit, ballistic computer and muzzle velocity radar, Sidgwick said. The system comes with a 155 mm, 52-caliber barrel and can maintain a firing rate of six to eight rounds per minute in sustained fire, or three rounds in 15 seconds in rapid fire. Sidgwick noted that the 52-caliber size is the NATO standard, but that Caesar also can fire 39-caliber rounds.

The weapon has an automatic hydraulic laying system and the loading mechanism is semi-automatic.

According to Giat, a unit of eight Caesar self-propelled artillery vehicles can dispense, in less than one minute, more than one ton of projectiles, 1,500 bomblets or 48 smart antitank munitions on targets at ranges up to 24 miles.

The platform is a 7-ton Daimler-Benz Unimog 6 x 6 chassis. It can travel un-refueled up to 360 miles. The whole system weighs 18 tons. Excluding its crew and ammunition supply, Caesar can be carried in a single load of a C-130 Hercules transporter. If Caesar were purchased for the U.S. military, existing Army or Marine trucks could be adapted as platforms, Sidgwick said.

In the current configuration, he added, each system costs about $2 million and can he produced in 12 months.

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