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BAE SYSTEMS lightweight 155mm Howitzer completes initial tests with US Marine Corps & US Army

28 Mar 2001

Ref: 046/2001

The first BAE Systems XM777 Engineering Manufacturing Development (EMD) prototype howitzer has successfully completed two series of evaluations at the US Army’s Yuma Proving Ground. The tests, which started in November last year, were the Human Factors Engineering (HFE) Task Model Validation (TMV) and the Firing Table Tests.

BAE Systems RO Defence, United Kingdom, is the prime contractor for the production of this new 155mm howitzer, for the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army. Production is scheduled to begin in the autumn of 2002. Some 80% of the howitzer, by dollar value, will be produced or integrated in the United States.

TMV is conducted to validate the crew task models and to determine if the current howitzer configuration can meet the emplacement and displacement time requirements. Two active duty howitzer crews were used - one from C Battery 1st Battalion 321st Field Artillery (Airborne), from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and the second from the 10th Marine Regiment, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

The crews were able to meet the required emplacement and shift of direction time requirements with the XM777. Emplacement times of two minutes were achieved against a three-minute requirement. The gun crews rated the XM777 much superior to the M198 in ease of emplacement and displacement. Rapid emplacement/displacement are key features in the increased survivability of the new XM777 howitzer over the existing system.

The Firing Tables Tests were also successfully completed by the XM777. Numerous charge and projectile combinations were fired in a side-by-side comparison with the current M198 howitzer with which the XM777 is ballistically matched. The first EMD howitzer fired several hundred rounds during these tests and since the beginning of the EMD contract with BAE Systems, XM777 prototypes have fired thousands of test rounds.