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155mm Next Generation Howitzer

The Army Contracting Command – New Jersey (ACC-NJ), Picatinny Arsenal, initiated a Market Survey in January 2022 on behalf of the Office of Program Manager Towed Artillery Systems (PM-TAS) to explore Next Generation Howitzer technologies in support of a multiyear capability assessment. The goal of the Capability Assessment is to gather information in support of future U.S. Army decisions regarding Next Generation Howitzer (NGH) and Towed Howitzer requirements. The Next Generation Howitzer is intended to be a more mobile and survivable 155mm system with a greater firing range and greater volume of fire than current howitzer systems.

Until the early 2000s, artillery systems offered in the international arms market were either towed or mounted on tracked vehicles. That changed in 2003 when the first CAESAR truckmounted 155mm artillery systems from GIAT were fielded. The first version of CAESAR (“Camion equipe d’in systeme d’artillerie” in French, “Truck Equipped with Artillery System” in English) was mounted on a Sherpa 5 6x6 five-ton truck chassis. An 8x8 version appeared at Eurosatory 2014. The appearance of CAESAR sparked the development of other truck-mounted artillery systems, including: (1) Swedish Archer, (2) South African G6 Rhino, (3) Slovakian Zuzana, (4) Serbian NORA B-52, (5) Israeli ATMOS (Autonomous Truck MOunted howitzer System), (6) Chinese 155 mm SH-1, 122 mm SH-2, and lightweight 122 mm SH-4 (7) Czech DANA, and (8) Russian A-222 “Bereg” 130 mm coastal defense gun and Koalition-2 155 mm howitzer concept.

There has been a transition from tracked to wheeled armored fighting vehicles in the global market since the 1990s. Wheeled armored vehicles have lower operational costs than tracked vehicles (e.g., a wheeled armored vehicle can go farther on the same amount of fuel). One of the big advantages of wheeled armored vehicles is they cost less to maintain. Tracks are complex, get caught on things, pins joining track links break, hard use will stretch steel track links slightly, and they are hard to repair and replace. Wheels, on the other hand, have fewer parts to go bad and are easier to replace. Wheeled vehicles are also less expensive to produce, so vendors can afford to self-finance prototypes targeted at perceived market niches.

They perform more freely in urban and “civilized areas” – places where tracked vehicles would heavily damage and destroy the road network. This has become an important consideration as the emphasis on urban and peace support operations has increased over time. Wheeled armored vehicles can be used for armored police vehicles, anti-riot, security special forces, and anti-terrorism vehicles, as well as traditional military armored personnel carriers. The Chinese in particular are marketing several dozen wheeled armored vehicle products at international arms and police/security equipment exhibitions.

This Request for Information (RFI) was issued solely for information and planning purposes, as a means for the Government to conduct market research, identifying interested parties and their capability to support the Government’s interest in exploring Next Generation Howitzer technologies. This Request for Information is for planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a solicitation or an obligation on behalf of the Unite States Government.

The government is interested in conducting a multiyear capability assessment of Next Generation Howitzer technologies by establishing an Other Transaction Agreement(s) (OTA) under the authority of 10 U.S.C. § 2371b for the:

• Characterization of existing 155mm Next Generation Howitzer systems versus baseline Next Gen Howitzer requirements via analysis and testing.
• Integration of an Offeror’s armament onto a US truck system.
• Integration of a US Next Generation Cannon into an Offeror’s armament.
• Modification of Offeror’s armament to increase Volume of Fire.
• Integration of US Digital Fire Control onto an Offeror’s 155mm Next Generation Howitzer System.

All interested vendors were requested to provide a summary of capability and experience in:

• Designing and manufacturing 155mm truck based artillery platforms.
• Qualifying and fielding 155mm truck based artillery platforms.
• Collaborating with the U.S Government via OTA or Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA).
• Modeling and simulation at system, subsystem, and component level of a 155mm truck based artillery platform.
• Integration of digital fire control systems.
• Onboard storing, resupplying, and firing of 155mm U.S munitions.
• Integrating a 155mm Armament onto different truck based systems.
• Integrating different cannon assemblies onto a 155mm Armament.
• Different technologies (e.g. automation, cannon cooling, etc.) that can increase the volume of fire of a 155mm artillery system.

Firms/companies were invited to indicate their capabilities by providing specifications, brochures, manuals, reports, demonstration videos and/or other technical data, as well as identification of current customers. This Market Survey is a Request for Information (RFI) ONLY and should NOT be construed as a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a commitment by the United States Government.

The Government is interested in a Digital Direct Fire Sight (DDFS) system for the Next Generation Howitzer that will be fielded to the Army’s Infantry and Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (IBCT’s/SBCT’s). The DDFS is required to aid in target acquisition for line-of-sight artillery fire. The Next Generation Howitzer will employ an onboard fire control system that will interface with the Fire Direction Center (FDC) and compute ballistic solutions for each round fired. If possible, integration into the Next Generation Howitzer fire control is desired for ballistic computation for accurate fires. For planning purposes, this effort could commence in the mid 2020’s and should not require an extended development cycle. Maximizing backwards compatibility with identified legacy ammunition and forward compatibility with developmental ammunition and armaments will be a key system attribute.

The Army Contracting Command New Jersey (ACC-NJ), Picatinny Arsenal, conducted a Market Survey on behalf of the Joint Program Manager Office Towed Artillery Systems (PM-TAS) to explore enabling technologies for an extended range 155mm Next Generation Howitzer system that utilizes a soft recoil system. The Government was interested in exploring large caliber primer designs for a high impulse, single zone system with a highly reliable ignition train. The Government is interested a primer that is of a long “bayonet” type design that uses standard interfaces to attach to a cartridge or stub case.

Bayonet primers have long been used in large caliber ammunition. A typical bayonet type primer includes a primer head for housing an initial firing stage of a round. An ignition element, pressed into place in the confines of the primer head, is charged with a pyrotechnic composition that starts the firing train. When activated, the ignition element disperses a flame through a retainer. The flame sets off an explosive charge of black powder. The black powder charge in turn propagates through a closing plug which acts as a directional device to a third charge of Benite. Benite is comprised mainly of nitrocellulose and black powder in a stranded form and other pyrotechnic formulations, housed in the primer body. The third charge propagates through holes in the metal primer body initially sealed with a lacquer. This charge, propagating through the primer body, ignites the propelling charge contained in the ammunition case moving the ammunition projectile such as a penetrator out of the gun barrel and to its target.

Unfortunately, conventional primers require a fine thread for attaching a retaining ring and closing plug assembly into a primer head assembly. Use of such a fine thread attachment mechanism results in a complicated and cumbersome assembly procedure. During assembly, the retaining ring must initially be carefully aligned. Once aligned it must be threaded into the head assembly without cross threading, driven to a specified torque value, and then staked. Such a delicate process is very difficult to automate due to the tolerances involved.

When an artillery weapon is fired, the energy of the round must be absorbed by the weapon's structure and eventually transmitted to the ground. Modern artillery systems incorporate recoil mechanisms to modulate the forces associated with these firings to a level that can be effectively and reliably supported by the structure. With some recoil mechanisms, the energy of the round is dissipated by throttling fluid over the length of the recoil. The minimum level of this modulating force is directly proportional to the length of recoil.

In a soft recoil system, the recoiling parts are accelerated forward prior to the firing of the round by an internal gas spring. When the round is fired, nearly half of the energy of the round is used to stop the forward motion of the recoiling parts and the remaining energy is used to force the recoiling parts rearward, recompressing the gas spring. The recoiling parts are then captured by a latch in preparation for the next firing. This use of momentum exchange and energy conservation by the soft recoil technique results in recoil force reductions as high as 75% when compared to conventional recoil systems.

Although the soft recoil technique offers considerable advantages, there are some drawbacks associated with the cycle. Among these are: (1) A different run-up velocity is required for each of the different zones/charges being fired to maximize the benefits, (2) If the round fails to fire during the run up (known as a misfire), the buffing load required to bring the forward velocity of the recoiling parts to zero may be high enough to cause some weapon instability, and (3) If the round fires prematurely from the latch position (known as a "cookoff"), the conventional recoil-style buffer rearward of the latch point may induce sufficient forces to cause the weapon to slide rearward or become unstable.