U.S. Army presses ahead on precision-guided artillery.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold

To help fill the void caused by cancellation of the Crusader artillery system, the U.S. Army is speeding up development of the Excalibur XM-982 family of precision-guided munitions.

Excalibur--named for the sword of Britain's mythical King Arthur--will be the Army's first artillery projectile guided by a global positioning system, according to the prime contractor, Raytheon Missile Systems, of Tucson, Ariz. It is similar to the Extended Range Guided Munition (ERGM) and Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRAP), which also are being developed by Raytheon.

The ERGM will be fired by the Navy's new 5-inch, 62-caliber Mod 4 gun, now being installed on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The LRAP is planned for the 155 mm Advanced Gun System, which United Defense, L.P., of Arlington, Va., is developing for the Navy's DD-X family of future surface-combat ships.

Excalibur will be a family of modular projectiles with three distinct payloads. A unitary warhead will be used against personnel, equipment and building targets in urban or complex terrain. A sensor-fuzed munition variant will engage self-propelled artillery and armored vehicles. A dual-purpose, improved conventional-munitions version will be employed against personnel, materiel and light armor.

The concept is considered a technological breakthrough for the Army, said Lt. Col. Jeffrey K Wilson. He is Excalibur's product manager in the Army's Armaments Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J. "With Excalibur, we can take on missions that field artillery could never rake on before," he told National Defense.

Range and Accuracy

As envisioned, he said, Excalibur would extend the range and accuracy of existing artillery weapons, such as the Paladin M-109A6 155 mm self-propelled howitzer and two towed cannon, the British-made XM-777 lightweight 155 mm howitzer and the heavier, 20-year-old M-198 155 gun. Current U.S. howitzers are outgunned by those used by potential adversaries, such as Iraq and North Korea, according to Army officials.

Although Excalibur is being designed to be fired by 155 mm howitzers, versions also could be developed for the Mobile Gun System, which is part of the Army's new Stryker family of light armored vehicles, and the Future Combat System, which is scheduled to be fielded in 2010, Wilson said.

"It's just a matter of exporting the technology to a smaller caliber," he explained. The MGS--the first of which was delivered to the Army in July--carries a 105-mm gun. Designers are considering either a 105 or 120 mm weapon for the FCS.

In August, the Army awarded a $27...