Aerospace Daily August 13, 2002
Developing a Crusader replacement poses high risks, analyst says
By Nick Jonson
The Army's goal of developing a new artillery system with technologies developed for the Crusader self-propelled howitzer program - and doing it by 2008, when it begins deploying its Future Combat Systems - poses a high risk, according to defense analyst John Pike.
The biggest challenge, according to Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, comes from mounting a heavy gun on a light armored vehicle weighing less than 20 tons.
The Army appears to be considering options to develop an unconventional gun system that incorporates electro-thermal propulsion, Pike said. Such a gun would be capable of serving in both direct fire and indirect fire roles as part of the Army's lighter, more mobile Objective Force. United Defense Industries, the prime contractor for the Crusader program, announced Aug. 8 that the Army had awarded the company a $ 27 million contract to develop a lighter, more deployable and lethal "Objective Force Cannon," also known as the Non-Line of Sight Cannon.
The new artillery system and its resupply vehicle would incorporate more than two dozen technologies developed over the past eight years for the Crusader program, UDI officials said.
But Pike said he was unclear on how the Army plans to mount a 155mm gun, the size of the Crusader and Paladin guns, on a 20-ton vehicle envisioned under the Army's Future Combat Systems program. Large-caliber guns traditionally are mounted on heavy armored vehicles so the vehicle's mass can absorb the recoil, he said.
To lessen the recoil impact on a smaller vehicle, the Army may be considering a smaller projectile, such as the standard 120mm projectile used in direct fire, or even a 90mm shell, he said.
"Maybe if the indirect fire howitzer is firing fast enough, you could achieve greater lethality with a smaller bullet," Pike said. "But that would reverse the inexorable trend from the 20th century toward bigger bullets."
Developing that kind of artillery system could take a decade, thereby missing the Army's plan to begin deploying the initial features of its Future Combat Systems in 2008, according to Pike.
"The schedule is slipping to the right as we speak," Pike said. The $ 2 billion the Army spent to develop Crusader "will vanish before you notice" in a program to develop a new artillery system, he added.
"I think it's one of the highest risk projects the Army is currently embarked on, and the highest risk project in the FCS system," he said.
Copyright 2002 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
