Way back in the idyllic 1990s, the Army had a big bloated program to build a big bloated howitzer to replace its 1960s-era M-109s. The XM-2001 Crusader, while hugely lethal, weighed more than 40 tons -- almost as much as an M-1 tank and way to much for rapid deployments to emerging hotspots. And that name ... can you imagine such an offensive moniker clearing the Pentagon these days?
Crusader was dramatically offed in 2002, in those heady months following then-SecDef Donald Rumsfeld's arrival at the Pentagon.
The M-109s aren't getting any younger, although most have gotten a semi-digital overhaul to M-109A6 Paladin standard. We need a replacement, stat, if the Army is serious about preserving organic fires for mechanized forces.
Enter BAE Systems' Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon, or NLOS-C, a snazzy model of which was on display at the Association of the U.S. Army trade show in Florida this week. According to program manager Mark Signorelli, NLOS-C mines all the best parts of Crusader: digital fire controls, superior comms and an autoloader that reduces the crew to just two from the M-109's five. But it weighs around half as much. "It's got Crusader DNA," Signorelli says of the new gun, contradicting previous generations of artillery officials who have tried to distance NLOS-C from its ill-fated predecessor.
NLOS-C is part of the Future Combat Systems family of vehicles, meaning it shares the same basic electric-hybrid chassis and the troubled netcentric Joint Tactical Radio System. But owing to the desperate need to replace the M-109, NLOS-C funding has, by Congressional decree, been "fenced off" from the rest of the FCS budget, which has been plundered in recent years to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Four of FCS' original 18 vehicles have been deferred indefinitely and others might fall too, but that will probably never happen to NLOS-C. By now it has momentum.
Thanks to this preferred status, the new howitzer is moving smoothly through development, even if the comms network it's supposed to plug into is late and over-budget. A protoype NLOS-C gun is at Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona firing off thousands of test rounds; the first full vehicle will arrive at Yuma for further tests next year. Having one major piece FCS that's advancing faster than the rest is prudent, Signorelli says. "We're blazing a trail."
--David Axe, cross-posted at War Is Boring
BAE is mention. Is the NLOS-C part of the British http://www.defense-update.com/products/f/fres.htm FRES program?
The FCS vehicles are concept vehicles that may or may not have been effective in combat. The American FCS program has with the indefinite deferments and the delays, morphed after much experience in Iraq and Afghanistan into a program that is spinning off advance equipment for existing vehicles. The http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,125462,00.html money saved can be used to replace the Humvee with the http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003344.html#comments MRAP family of vehicles. Not really a bad outcome.
The British on the other hand have derived little from FRES and still ride around in the
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/5118114.stm Snatch Land Rover and their latest vehicle chosen in 2003 the completely useless http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2007/03/assisted-suicide.html Panther
Compared to the British the US has handled competing needs in a fairly rational fashion.
Posted by: Peter | March 09, 2007 at 08:06 AM