Raytheons innovative satellite-guided 155mm artillery shell was used in operations in Iraq last weekend to kill a top local al Qaeda leader south of Baghdad.
Bloomberg News Tony Capaccio reports a salvo of XM982 Excalibur artillery shells were targeted against Abu Jurah and 14 associates in a house near the town of Arab Jabour.
The two-shell salvo fired by Soldiers from the Armys 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery Regiment is particularly significant because it could mean the re-emergence of field artillery as a viable weapon in the highly restrictive combat environment of an urban counterinsurgency.
The statement e-mailed from Baghdad said Abu Jurah was “the top target” in al-Qaida south of Baghdad, responsible for a terrorist cell that made improvised roadside bombs and suicide-vehicle bombs and fired mortars at U.S. troops.
The attack marked the U.S. military’s first acknowledgement that the new precision-guided weapon has been used in Iraq. In combat testing before deployment, the weapon demonstrated accuracy within 20 feet (6 meters) of its target, a precision designed to minimize civilian casualties and accidental U.S. military deaths in a war that is increasingly urban.
An unguided 155mm shell can miss its target by as much as 900 feet or 280 meters. The Excalibur has a 50-pound warhead. The Army wanted a weapon with a much smaller warhead than the 200-pound charge on its only precision-guided ground-based mobile rocket system, officials said.
Abu Jurah was killed by troops from the Army’s 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery Regiment, who fired the two Excalibur shells, destroying the meeting house, the statement said.
For Waltham, Mass.-based Raytheon, successful combat use is a milestone in a $1.4 billion program for up to 30,000 shells costing about $39,000 apiece.
Raytheon is under contract to make the first 500 rounds. The Army program office at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., says Raytheon will produce at least the first 3,000 shells and could compete to make the remaining 27,000.
The roughly 6-inch-diameter Excalibur uses a combination of Global Positioning System satellite guidance and inertial navigation to hit targets at ranges of up to 40 kilometers, or about 25 miles.
By comparison, a conventional artillery shell’s range is about 20 kilometers, or about 12 miles; rocket-assisted shells can go up to 30 kilometers, or about 19 miles.
The Excalibur program went into development in the late 1990s and became a joint project of the United States and Sweden in 2002.
Over the last several years, artillery units in the Army and Marine Corps have been reshuffled and given collateral or provisional duties because commanders fearful that the use of unguided artillery could result in civilian casualties that undercut U.S. efforts to forge a peace in Iraq have declined to use cannon and large mortars or rockets in their AORs. Instead, artillerymen have been increasingly employed as infantrymen, civil affairs technicians or military police.
With the Excalibur, the calculation has changed. Artillery is far more responsive than air power and since its tied closely with the infantry, more likely to be used instead of airpower due to its familiarity with infantry fire support officers.
Clearly this is an exciting time for artillerymen who are growing tired of helping build and guard Iraqi institutions instead of blowing them up.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
Clearly this is an exciting time for artillerymen who are growing tired of helping build and guard Iraqi institutions instead of blowing them up.
Well, in that case it must be a positive development!
“Clearly this is an exciting time for artillerymen who are growing tired of helping build and guard Iraqi institutions instead of blowing them up.”
LoL!
The average person’s salary to fire 1 round (or 2 if you count the training time of the artillery men, the cost of the weapons system and logistics). The excalbur (sp) round is super cool don’t get me wrong. But it seems very much a ‘golden gun’.
But I don’t think you can put a price on being able to kill insurgents without making more of them.
I’ve seen some posts on blogs denigrating the Excalibur. It’s nice to see someone make a good point about the response time for artillery vs. airpower. Besides, even if the shells are individually expensive, it’s also expensive having airplanes running holding patterns over the whole darn country.
So why not a PGM mortar? Anyone seen reaction time of mortar versus FA?
I second your sentiments about recommissioning the Battleships, Chief B.
I think some of the hot-shot “top guns” in the Navy considered the BB a threat to their “territory”, which is a shame. Those BB’s are an awesome weapon of intimidation all by themselves, even without firing their guns. Just ask the Iraqis in the 1st Gulf war.
The kind of upgrade which would do the most good would be a nuclear plant with electric propulsion to replace the fuel-guzzling plant they have now. Then they would have the power on board needed to support some really good self-defensive weaponry like solid-state lasers (still in development), or even rail guns for either defensive or offensive operations. Sure it would be expensive, but in my opinion, well worth it. They would be good for another 40-50 years or more with the proper care.
Re: Max’s Comment.
You are absolutely right about why the BBs were killed off: Rice bowls. Which, in the Chiefs’ Mess translates into Piss Poor Leadership. It is also a jarringly obvious symptom of the disease that has infected the military-industrial complex. That disease prevents us from making sound strategic decisions, ensures our leaders diddle and dither while awaiting the cushy job post-retirement, and guarantees that the big providers (Boeing, NG, etc.) will run over budget, run over time, and deliver a substandard product.
The robust leadership that is unafraid of someone else’s ideas, is eager to use what works (without regard to how old it is), and is concerned ONLY with sound strategic thinking is sorely lacking these days. Instead of leadership we have the Frankenstein’s monster cobbled together from the gee-whiz geeks, unscrupulous contractors, and spineless, anorchic officers.
Select a hundred salty Chiefs and leathery Gunnys to run the Pentagon for a year and you might see some change. Of course, it’d be Donnybrook Fair on the Hill. But we need to absolutely KILL all these crazy programs and invest money in spiral development of existing programs and in PEOPLE.
“Cheers,
Chief B.”
Hey I love the BB’s more than anyone – but you gotta give it up- the BB’s will not be reactivated. I drive by the New jersey every day. Its great- but they welded the guns in place so that’s that. The manpower for a BB is just too high.
I know the CVN’s cost 5 x as much but the Navy will never give up on them.
What we really need is a damn surface ship that costs less than one billion $! We can’t seem to do that anymore.
I served in the Army for nearly (20) years in the old comventional Artillery it is “Refreshing” to see technology that have improved the system. I was part of the “First” colation experiments wherby two weapons in differnt locations could fire on the same targets in minutes. the Artillery can privide emediate relief in minutes to Troops cut off or serounded,i am excited and glad to see this improvement.
Gotta love the Chief! Thanks for saying it so well.
Joe:
IIRC, PGM mortars are in the works too. IIRC, both laser guided 81mm and laser or GPS guided 120mm are on the way.
IIRC, there are also proposals to deploy such PGM from AC-130s, or UAVs. You’d basically drop the warhead from the top of its usual arc, or below, rather than wasting time and energy boosting it up there from another location. So ideally a field commander could call a unit-organic mortar, UAV or Spectre strike without calling another command. “Death From Above.”
Maybe it’ll work; maybe not. From where I sit, it looks like having a few more arrows in the quiver won’t hurt. It looks like the GWOT’s not going to be over anytime soon.
Don’t be too sure that arty is cheaper than air. As Lewis Page points out in discussing the British effort in Iraq (Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs), you have to look at the total effort required to get a ton of munitions on a target in Iraq – all the way from (in his case) home base back in the UK. Yes, the munitions themselves are cheaper for arty; but the logistics chain is huge. An entire arty regiment, plus all the shipping it needs, plus the requirement for force and LOC protection… compared to two Harriers based in a safe foreign country or at sea.
Everyone seems to forget that we don’t create weapons based on the cost required to kill a target. Having planes handy to destroy or disorganize a mass of tanks or to strike deep targets is ideal, but having them around to kill a few terrorists when the guys on the ground need help seems as good a reason to have them to me. On the other hand, Excalibur, GMLRS, BBs and all that are good too. It is unfortunate that we just can’t afford them all, and choice have to be made. I get upset when the choice is just plain stupid, like cancelling the B-2 after just 21 planes. I bet people wish we could have more of them capable of dropping 80 x 500lb JDAMs each on different targets of some bad guys in the future. The number of weapons from all services that have been cancelled just as they were about to go operational is stunningly poor leadership and planning on our part. Here is a short list, M-8 Sheridan light tank, ADATS, possible the Marine Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle if we don’t watch out, we gave up on the XB-70 so we could keep the older, lumbering, slow B-52 around for nearly 80 years?, the Land Attack Standard Missile. We are cutting short the F-22 just as it is proving to be the worlds best fighter. Funny, the Chinese haven’t stopped buying fighter aircraft, and the Russians, Europeans and others are building them too. The F-22 is so good the Japanese and Israelis (albeit with our money most likely) want to buy some. We stopped buying the Seawolf SSN so we could buy a more expensive Virginia-class SSN that is marginally more effective (and all of the extra capabilities of the Virginia could have been placed in the Seawolf without major redesign). Well enough said.
Re: ajay on the logistics train
With all due deference to the good Mr. Page, and if I haven’t taken both he and ajay out of context, it seems that you’ve both made the common error of not accounting for TIME in your assessment.
The assessment does hold up if we’re using only a discreet mission. However, if we extend the assessment over the course of many missions and a long period the argument falls apart.
Here’s why: 1) That arty sitting at a FOB or (ahem) the BB sitting of the coast has only to be brought into theater once. The airdropped super sexy JDAM has to be flown off the airbase or CVN everytime. 2) Having ordnance hanging off an airframe that’s doing the piddle-diddle over the theater WAITING for a target eats up fuel, manpower, useful life of the airframe, and hours of maintenance. Not every sortie drops all its ordnance — that JDAM has to be brought back to the airbase or CVN, downloaded from the plane, disarmed, and stowed. Whereas the gun crew or NSFS ship loads and fires rounds ONLY when they have a fire mission.
Put another way, its like calling a taxi and having it sit, with the meter running 24/7, because you MIGHT need to go somewhere. Moreover, would you call a local taxi (the arty at the FOB or NSFS ship) or would you call the taxi from out of town (airbase or CVN aircraft)?
Cheers,
Chief B.
Re: wpnexp
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
And so Ike warned us more than 50 years ago. That warning, unheeded, has left us at a lamentable juncture:
Our manufacturing base for ships, planes, and weapons systems has been steadily eroded to the point that only a few companies now exist;
Our upward spiral of ever more complex armaments has been accompanied by attendant increases in cost;
And, at the top of this spiral we find ourselves with companies completely dependent on Uncle Sugar’s crackhead pursuit of the next high. And Uncle Sugar unable to pay for it. The B-2, F-22, DD(X), F-35, FCS, and most of these “leap ahead” projects are just ever larger pieces of crack — not only are they not needed, they’re killing us.
Iraq should be, by now, a shattering Come-to-Jesus moment for DoD leadership, Congress, and the directors of Raytheon, LockMart, Boeing, etc. All the sexy gigabuck weapons systems in theater aren’t winning this war. This war is being won by the grunt, humping it through the alleyways, and kicking Johnny’s ass up close and personal. Those grunts need a better rifle, not a helmet mounted supercomputer. Those grunts need more A-10s or AC-130s ready to bring Johnny instant karma in the giant economy size, not the Rodeo Drive boutique F-22 that costs so much you’d be a damned fool to do CAS with one. Those grunts need to know that they can call on arty and NSFS fires that can hit a point target (in apocalyptic volumes if Johnny insists), not a megabuck Tomahawk that’ll get there in an hour or so. Those grunts need a bomb truck at 38,000′ waiting for the GPS coordinates of where Johnny wants his JDAM delivered, not a billion dollar B-2 flying in from Guam.
Do we REALLY need an F-35, or can we still whip anybody’s ass with the F/A-18, F-16, F-15 equipped with upgraded systems? How is it that we can’t restart the production lines for a bombtruck like the A-6, but can INVENT a production line for the F-22? How is it that we can go through untold iterations of DD(X)/CG(X) but can’t simply reactivate a BB? For that matter, why can’t we take the basic design of an IOWA, DES MOINES, ALASKA, apply modern materials, manufacturing, weapons, and systems and build a wholly new ship?
In my humble opinion it is because the military-industrial complex would go into life-threatening crack withdrawal without a steady supply of new and ever more expensive weapons.
Its time for an old-fashioned intervention: Send the entire Congress packing at the earliest opportunity, clean out the Pentagon, and let’s get back to the honorable profession of killing our enemies — not providing welfare to industry.
Cheers,
(a mildy irritated) Chief B.
Once again, Chief, I think you’ve pegged it just about right.
I think it’s mostly about politics, and a lot of it can be traced right back to the halls of Congress, where certain members hold the military hostage to their desire for home-state jobs at ANY cost.
Personally, I’m not against new weapon systems. I was a part of the software team for the (now canceled) Crusader Howitzer, which would have replaced the Paladin. It was a great idea and a great weapon system, IF we were still in a cold war with the Soviet Union. Some of the capabilities, like multiple-launch simultaneous impact (fire several rounds quickly so they all end up on the same target at almost the same moment), are great, and I’m sure the Army could use them, even in Iraq. Some of the others, like displaying the fuel consumption, odometer data, vehicle speed, etc on the crew monitor displays were hugely expensive and unnecessary.
But what the Chief has been saying is right in my view. Especially when you compare what you could have with a new, updated (nuclear-powered) Battleship that could fire a 16-inch round (or a volley of them) perhaps hundreds of miles inland with rocket assist. Can you imagine the intimidation factor of the New Jersey sitting off the coast of Iran with such powerful weapons that could strike large areas of the country with impunity? There is no missile or gun defense against 16-inch rounds (at least not yet)!! In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the 16-inch armor piercing round (with rocket assist) wouldn’t be the exact thing that is needed to knock out the deeply buried bunkers that hide Iran’s nuclear facilities. Too bad we didn’t keep at least one of them active, so we could use it now.
BTW, I was a sailor in the early 80s when the BB’s were still on active duty. The New Jersey was lobbing shells near Beirut while my ship (USS Virginia (CGN-38)) was there, and I’m only 47, so I know for a fact that there are plenty of not-so-old sailors out there who would be happy to come back on active duty just for the privilege of training new sailors on the old BBs. In other words, there is no lack of expertise available if the Navy asks for it, so that is not an excuse for not bringing them back.
Boy howdy, Chief — if you’re “mildly irritated” now, I’d hate to see you pissed off.
At the risk of that, does anyone know anything about the feasibility of launching 155mm, MLRS, or ATACMS from ships? For example, RORO or container vessels? I realize that a thin-skinned vessel filled with ordnance is dead meat for counterbattery fire or cruise missiles, but some systems outrange the former, and picket ships (for example, AEGIS cruisers) or combat air patrol might hedge some of the risks of the latter.
I’m not saying such a quick, cheap and dirty approach could ever replace a BB, but it seems like it would make for a nasty surprise. I mean, one day it’s a prepositioned container ship, covered with boxes and tarps, and the next it sheds camo, and starts tossing fire.
I’d be surprised if some LCDR hasn’t already PowerPointed it out. I’d be even less surprised if he got cashiered for it.
Hello everyone,
well have been there didn’t like it, got the T shirt.
We need to get faster and smarter, the weapon systems can do it, can our C3-C5 respond. No they can’t. Not in real time, not with the eyes on the ground. Actually the systems are there, enpower the eyes on the ground.
Hello everyone,
well have been there didn’t like it, got the T shirt.
We need to get faster and smarter, the weapon systems can do it, can our C3-C5 respond. No they can’t. Not in real time, not with the eyes on the ground. Actually the systems are there, enpower the eyes on the ground.
Re: Demophilus
Hey, I
Chief:
Thanks for the colloquy, and your service.
As for container/RORO NSFS, I was thinking it’s more of a patch than a solution. Still better to have something than nothing.
In more direct response to your comments, I think base bleed and rocket assist are available for 155mm. IIRC, Raytheon and the Navy are working on the Extended Range Guided Munition for the 5″ guns, a PGM/RAP with a quoted range of 63 miles. I’ll believe that when I see it with my own eyes.
I agree with your take on the Tomahawk. FWIW, the Navy’s been working on something called the “Affordable Weapon System”, a containerized cruise missile that was planned to deliver the some of the same capability at 10% of the cost. Last I heard, they were having problems with that. Wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up over budget.
AWS containers and other “modules” have been suggested as load outs for the “Sea Fighter”/”X craft” program — high speed catamarans mission-configured with containerized weapons, etc. Maybe someone’s thinking about NSFS missions for those, or the “littoral combat ship”. Don’t know if they’ll have the deck space for a big punch, but you never know; maybe with networked fires and shoot and scoot tactics, you could lay down something. Sometimes a pack of wild dogs is as bad as a bear. Small, fast “container” ships make also make a good fit for MLRS, or some other artillery rocket system.
Apart from the “network centric” aspects, which is an easy sell, that would tend to put bluejackets back in the alligator or brown water navy business. That’s a hard sell. Don’t know if you can get Admirals to go there.
Unless they have to; necessity really is the mother of invention.
And, to Rob:
Thanks for your service, as well. You make a good point: having high tech fire support isn’t worth much if you can’t get the chain of command off the dime. FWIW, I’ve seen that discussed vis-a-vis the conventional Trident program — apart from such a launch scaring the piss out of the Russians, Chinese, etc., what’s the sense of having a weapon that can strike anywhere in half an hour if it takes you two hours to clear it with JAG, and State, the White House, etc., etc.?
Pretty discouraging to hear you’d have a similar problem getting a 155mm strike with eyes on target. That sucks.
Don’t know what to say, except that Achilles’ heel is a metaphor. All this whiz bang high tech, deadly bullshit, one of the finest military machines in human history, and all you need to derail it is one f*cknut in the mix.
He who hesitates…
Hoo boy — I need a drink.