M109A6 test bed for XM907 ERCA

MadRat said:
They had Copperhead figured out in the 80s literally using technology from the 70s. I have confidence its not the worst obstacle.
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Copperhead didn't have an IMU. building an IMU to survive 20,000gees and 20,000rpm is not easy.

But now that it exists, it's trivial to make new guided artillery shells.
 
MadRat said:
They had Copperhead figured out in the 80s literally using technology from the 70s. I have confidence its not the worst obstacle.
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Copperhead would be lucky to hit a house in the same neighborhood it was fired at.

It has nothing to do with Excalibur, either in performance or in technology. Excalibur was a fairly well run program all things considered, but it was a very demanding high-technology item that required a lot of work and serious engineering to work.

The IMU and GPS guidance package and canard system by Texas Instruments took about a decade to get there, since that started in 1997 when Excalibur shifted from a "self-locating" cassette shell, to a fully INS guided GPS-assisted projectile with a unitary warhead. Literally 10 years of fabricating test projectiles later, and figuring out how to get the MEMS components to function, made for serious hard work.

The initial Honeywell IMU had problems with cracking and delaminating on launch during the 2007 test fires at Yuma during initial test & evaluation in 2010 with the troops, but the hard part had already been done: making a self-guiding projectile that was consistently accurate after being fired out of a gun. This is what Copperhead tried to do, but it never "figured out", precisely because it was made with technology from the '70's.

Eventually Excalibur settled on an Atlantic Inertial IMU that solved the problems with cracking on acceleration and in 2009 DOD managed to ship ~500 Excaliburs to Afghanistan for combat use.

Scott Kenny said:
Copperhead didn't have an IMU. building an IMU to survive 20,000gees and 20,000rpm is not easy.

But now that it exists, it's trivial to make new guided artillery shells.
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I'll be shocked if people who aren't BRICS will still be trying to make Excaliburs a decade from now. It's antiquated technology, canards are bad, poor volume efficiency, etc. SPACIDO and M1156 PGK provide most of the same benefit out to 30 kilometers and can be used with ordinary shells.

I doubt Northrop or ATK have anything Excalibur in the PGK, but it can turn a ICM shell like M483 into a guaranteed hit on a target.
 
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Also needs to be said that the Excalibur is a living program.

Each batch is an improvement design over the last as they tweak it. Large part of the reason why the 2016 Excals were 68k while the 2022 ones are back to 110k. Basically the deal between the F18A and the FA18Ds is what happening to tge Excalibur shell.


Throw in the system is slatted for both a laser seekers and MillimetersWave radar seekers in the near future?

Eyeah real fun shit happening there.

Toss in being able to be yeeted out to 70km by the L58s to the L38 40km and L52 55km? Basically a sniper to the MLRSs shotgun.
 
Kat Tsun said:
XM919 will probably be able to do that.



It would ruin hulls if penetrated. M1 hulls are a limited resource since they haven't made any new ones lately. A turret can just be replaced.



Stryker MGS only carried 18 rounds and M8 AGS only had 22, tbf.

I don't think anyone has said what M10 actually carries, but it's been suggested to be around 50 rounds, like the old M1. Presumably it may even use the old M1 or IPM1 ammo racks in the bustle, since it's a naked M1 turret, which would mean 44 rounds in the bustle.
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Briefly touching on the autoloader again, what about FASTDRAW? 36 rounds in the turret bustle is pretty good.
 
And yet another 'supposed' imperative program cancelled.
'But can we have a lazy $55 million next year....' :rolleyes:
How much have the spent on this XM907 ERCA?

Wasn't it only but a couple of days ago that many were using the language of 'what a joke' and 'incompetence' in relation to the Russian's cancelling the serious production of their T-14 MBT?

Regards
Pioneer
 

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Pioneer said:
And yet another 'supposed' imperative program cancelled.
'But can we have a lazy $55 million next year....' :rolleyes:
How much have the spent on this XM907 ERCA?

Wasn't it only but a couple of days ago that many were using the language of 'what a joke' and 'incompetence' in relation to the Russian's cancelling the serious production of their T-14 MBT?

Regards
Pioneer
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Thing is unlike the T14 which is a complete loss from being a new build.

The ERCA was basically an ungun M109.

Like literally the only difference was the longer barrel since they scrapped the Autoloader a few years back. Hell it had the same drive train, hull, electrical stuff and turret.

So the US Army wasted a few millions on getting a new gun barrel.

While Russia lost the more on an all new tank family which had nothing in common with the older stuff.

You see the vast differences now?

Also its need to be noted?

That tge Ammo? The real important bit which did a solid half the work? Is staying on track, likely cause you can fire it from the old 38 barrels just fine. And still puts the range into GMLRS territory.
 
BreakingDefense

Today’s budget submission highlights one new weapon decision: The Army has halted work on its Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) platform. For several years, it had been integrating, and testing out, the additional of a 30-foot, 58-caliber gun tube to BAE Systems’ Paladin M109A7 self-propelled howitzer. The goal was to use the modified artillery platform to launch 155-mm rounds out to 70km, an increase from the current max range of up to 30km.
After the ERCA platform encountered technical challenges during live fire testing, including excessive wear and tear on the cannon, the Army launched a tactical fires study designed, in part, to determine what to do about the modified launcher and the entire portfolio.
“We concluded the prototyping activity last fall, unfortunately, [it was] not successful enough to go straight into production,” Army acquisition head Doug Bush said during the budget preview.
However, the “exhaustive” tactical fires study revalidated the need for a longer-range artillery platform. Hence, the service will issue a request for information shortly for full-up systems — platform and ammunition — with the goal of conducting initial evaluations of those candidates this summer, he added. If those demos prove fruitful, the service wants to spend $55 million in FY25 for a more detailed comparison with plans to make a final production downselect in the future.

“It’s a shift from developing something new to working with what is available both domestically or internationally to get… the range and volume,” Bush added. “So, we want to find a different way to get there.”
While that is a big shakeup, the ERCA effort also included development work on a mix of new munitions and a supercharged propellant. Bush said work on those fronts will continue for now, but did not detail the exact spending plan.
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No explicit mention of the M109 with the proven Rheinmetall 52 caliber barrel tested at Camp Ripley, Minnesota and shown at AUSA last year, BAE Systems planned to conduct additional testing in 2024, with extended range and a variety of long range projectiles.

breakingdefense.com

Army's $186B budget request shuffles artillery, aviation plans - Breaking Defense

The Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) platform joins the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) on the budget cutting room floor for America's largest service.
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com
 
Cordy said:
No explicit mention of the M109 with the proven Rheinmetall 52 caliber barrel tested at Camp Ripley, Minnesota and shown at AUSA last year, BAE Systems planned to conduct additional testing in 2024, with extended range and a variety of long range projectiles.

breakingdefense.com

Army's $186B budget request shuffles artillery, aviation plans - Breaking Defense

The Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) platform joins the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) on the budget cutting room floor for America's largest service.
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com
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No explicit mention, but the RFI for an all-up system is stated as coming soon enough that prototypes can be tested *this summer.* That makes the BAE-Rheinmetall team happy because they already have the vehicle to test with. t
 
Were there actually new technologies involved in ERCA that they hoped were going to reduce barrel wear or were they relearning the same old lesson again for some reason?

Maybe the Army will see sense in a more modest upgrade to a L/52 gun and other improvements, but I get the sense they'd rather sit on their hands and do nothing while the M109A7 with its L/39 gun and manual loading is outclassed by the competition.

I'm also left wondering what the Crusader would look like now with 15 or so years of service.
 
L/52 and L/52A1 are the "cheapest" option if they want to have a longer barrel and its also really good at having a long barrel life. Could also open new Options If they still use develop the projectile but i don't know if it got canceled to.
 
kqcke for you said:
L/52 and L/52A1 are the "cheapest" option if they want to have a longer barrel and it’s also really good at having a long barrel life. Could also open new Options If they still use develop the projectile but i don't know if it got canceled to.
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L52 has been the standard for what? At least 20+ yrs? Absolutely Keystone Cops.
 
Bruno Anthony said:
L52 has been the standard for what? At least 20+ yrs? Absolutely Keystone Cops.
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Closer to 36 years, I believe Quadrilateral Ballistics Agreement (QBA) which standardised on a 52-calibre barrel with a 23-litre chamber was signed circa 1988. Interestingly at the time the US preferred the 58-calibre long, 28-litre chamber XM282, predecessor the XM1299's XM907E2.
 
Bruno Anthony said:
L52 has been the standard for what? At least 20+ yrs? Absolutely Keystone Cops.
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I was thinking more in line with rheinmetalls barrel but yeah. Anyway wasn't there a M109 User with an autoloader or semi autoloader? Couldn't take those to things as a "cheap and quick" alternative for the M109s. After all everything is in work for it anyway / it was already developted so cost should be small
 
A Tentative Fleet Plan said:
Closer to 36 years, I believe Quadrilateral Ballistics Agreement (QBA) which standardised on a 52-calibre barrel with a 23-litre chamber was signed circa 1988. Interestingly at the time the US preferred the 58-calibre long, 28-litre chamber XM282, predecessor the XM1299's XM907E2.
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So many domestically developed AFV armaments passed up. What was wrong with the XM297 with mid-tube cooling? Worked too well?

So the XM282 wasn’t exactly new either.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1586986130993713152
View: https://x.com/ronkainen7k15/status/1586986130993713152?s=61&t=XGowph07Gg26dUO_Zg9xwg
 
kqcke for you said:
I was thinking more in line with rheinmetalls barrel but yeah. Anyway wasn't there a M109 User with an autoloader or semi autoloader? Couldn't take those to things as a "cheap and quick" alternative for the M109s. After all everything is in work for it anyway / it was already developted so cost should be small
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Paladin has a shell autoloader, only charges are hand loaded. And if they can use standard MACS charges in the L52 instead of that monster supercharge in ERCA, they can probably keep doing that.
 
Kat Tsun said:
No, it wasn't. The business case was partially built on backwards compatibility. We'll know how big of a deal it was if ERCA gets killed or not.

Between schedule slippage from the barrel wear problem and redesigns needed to fit in the M109A7 hull, and lack of backwards compatibility, I think ERCA is doomed. If they can make the case that ERCA is important regardless of backwards compatibility, it wouldn't have been a factor in the initial presentation, so it must be pretty weighty.

Armaments Center is probably vacillating between exasperated resignation and manic busywork about the whole ordeal right now.



There are immense (literally, weighty) logistical reasons to not go for 155mm in the Light Forces.

Arguably there's no industrial reason either, since a 105mm production line probably can't produce 155mm shells, and vice versa. You'd need different jigs, dies, tools, racks, etc; but there was actually a huge logistician pushback from 155mm in the Light Forces units anyway. It's why the 105mm M119 is still around in the 82nd and 101st Airborne and the 10th Mountain DS artillery battalions; M777 is for the GS battalions.

Armaments Center developed a plastic high capacity payload shell called LAP (lightweight artillery projectile) to address this in the 1990's using HICAP as a basis, back when the M777 was still the XM777. It never went anywhere because DA deferred to fund Crusader. LAP and XM777 would have given the same tonnage of 155mm twice the lethality of existing 105mm ICM shells.

That would mean half as many rounds to fire though, which means less suppression and fewer minutes of fire.

A similar Navy program, called Best Buy, was deferred for AGS too but I'm still waiting for the Wish.com Warhead to show in [dstl] documents.




Ctrl+F "fight".
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Do you have some links on that LAP? That sounds very interesting.
 
With smart weapons integrated onto artillery, its slowly becoming a matter of target counts per use. A small number of long range guided weapons literally destabilized an overwhelming and clumped up, larger force in the Ukraine. However the larger force has been able to fan out to make the smart weapons target them one by one. It dramatically slowed down the tempo of counter battery fire. Cluster weapons can only spread out so much. Smart weapons will need to grow in size per round and distribute multiple independent submunitions over wider areas imho.
 
Has anyone else seen a "DIV SPEAR" mentioned before?
(Division Self-Propelled Enhanced Artillery Requirement)
The Long Range Precision Fires CFT recently hosted a Characteristic of Needs Statement (CoNS) Workshop, bringing together key stakeholders involved in the Division Self-Propelled Enhanced Artillery Requirement (DIV SPEAR). Partners from Project Director Tactical Artillery Systems, Project Manager Self-Propelled Howitzer Systems, PM Combat Ammunition Systems, and Fires Capabilities Development and Integration Directorate collaborated to refine the CoNS. This effort sets the stage for a Performance Demonstration beginning in October, evaluating the state of industry for howitzers and resupply vehicles in preparation for the FY26 Competitive.
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