SURFACE FIRE SUPPORT GOING GREAT GUNS Most of today’s surface combatants feature a main gun system, a practice which will continue for the foreseeable future. (Photo: US DoD) In the summer of 2018, USN acquisition officials from Base Quantico in Virginia. The fly-off assessment, executed by the office of Washington headed to New Mexico and boarded the service’s the Naval Sea Systems Command Program Desert Ship, a land-based testing facility, to evaluate three Executive Officer for Integrated Warfare different precision munitions (each of which were originally Systems, featured Raytheon’s N5, a naval variant of its Excalibur 1B artillery munition, designed for ground-based artillery) in order to assess which BAE Systems and Leonardo’s Vulcano might best extend the reach of the USN’s main naval gun to round, and a variant of Northrop Grumman’s Precision Guidance Kit. support USMC operations. By Jason Sherman Each of the long-range, satellite-guided rounds was judged on the ability to improve he ‘fly-off’ – conducted in August shore-based launchers is forcing the ‘operational effectiveness over currently and September at White Sands USN to move further and further from the fielded conventional munitions’ as well T Missile Range (WSMR) where the shoreline to survive. That shift potentially as the ability to ‘approximately double the USN maintains a detachment for testing puts the use of the main naval gun out of current range of the gun system’, according missiles, gun munitions and more – was range of shore-based targets. to the USN’s solicitation inviting industry the most recent effort to develop new ‘The navy and marine corps need a to propose. The objective of the extended options for arming the Mk 45 Gun Weapon modern naval surface fires capability that range is to support naval surface fire System, a mainstay of the surface provides precision, range and volume for support (NSFS) land attack missions as combatant fleet, to strike targets current and future threat environments. well as increase capabilities for ASuW, beyond the gun’s 21km range. The current 13NM [21km] range of our particularly against fast attack craft and naval guns produces significant risk to the fast inshore attack craft. At arm’s length amphibious task force,’ said LtCol Stuart Specifically, the USN wanted rounds The emergence and proliferation of anti- Fugler, a spokesperson for USMC Combat that could fly at least 42km at a rate of five ship cruise missiles that can be fired from Development Command at Marine Corps rounds per minute with an accuracy of 10m 6 NAVAL WARFARE INTERNATIONAL MAY/JUNE 2019 VOLUME 2 NUMBER 3 WWW.NAVALWARFARE.NEWS SURFACE FIRE SUPPORT or less. ‘We did the fly-off, we did the The prospect of designing a new The same year, the USMC and USN physical evaluation,’ said a USN official ship class, and one integral to marine launched a pair of programmes to give involved in the event. ‘We put them through amphibious operations, once again focused surface combatant guns the ability to their paces pretty aggressively. We have a the USMC and USN on the role of naval reach further. The first, the Extended- really good understanding of what these guns in the mission to get steel from a ship Range Guided Munition (ERGM) things can do.’ to a land target to support marines ashore. programme, established to give the In addition to test-firing at WSMR, the USN The USMC effectively asked for additional cruiser and destroyer guns a 93km reach, also conducted lethality analysis of each of time to provide a final answer. Quantico- was terminated in 2008 following cost the munitions at the Naval Surface Warfare based USMC requirements officials and growth and technical challenges. Center Dahlgren Division in Virginia. The USN staff in the Pentagon are conducting The second, the Long-Range Land-Attack results, which the navy will not disclose, war games and analysis in the coming Projectile (LRLAP) – a rocket-assisted were finalised and have been briefed to months, with the expectation to reach a 155mm round designed for the DDG 1000 service leaders. What to do with the results new agreement about exactly what range fleet – was to be fired up to 97km from is now subject to a larger high-stakes analysis is needed for NSFS. the pair of Advanced Gun Systems slated that the USMC is conducting with the USN, A high-level handshake agreement for each Zumwalt-class destroyer until the with implications for what role – if any – the between the USMC and USN about the USN terminated the munition programme Mk 45 Gun Weapon System will assume in updated range requirement is expected in 2017, citing an earlier decision to cap assisting NSFS missions in the future. The within the next 12 months, a service official DDG 1000 orders at three ships. Mk 45 is a key component of the ‘fires triad’ told Shephard in March. ‘The question that ‘We learned a lot of what not to do used to support USMC fighting ashore along we are working through with the marine from those programmes,’ said the USN with helicopter gunships and ground forces corps is: “What is the relative range that official, pointing out specifically that new- artillery and mortar fire. they need?”’ said the official. start programmes with significant non- In the 1970s, the USN selected the recurring development costs are difficult Range objectives 5in (127mm)/54cal type as the standard to sustain without substantial follow-on In the fall of 2018, USN requirements gun system for its destroyers and cruisers, procurement objectives. officials drafting outlines for a future surface giving surface combatants a range of 21km While the USN has about 100 Mk 45 combatant – a follow-on to the service’s to attack other ships, slow-moving aircraft guns in its fleet, the US Army and USMC DDG 51-class Arleigh Burke destroyers slated and targets near the shoreline. When the by comparison have about 1,000 artillery to begin construction in the late 2020s – four Iowa-class battleships the navy had pieces, giving ground forces much stronger asked their USMC counterparts about their pulled back into service to provide marines position to develop and procure long-range anticipated need for NSFS: ‘Exactly how much longer-range shore support retired in 1992, guided munitions. range will you need to support operations to the service was left with only the shorter- ‘That’s why for fly-off, all three of those get marines to shore and provide fires in range guns to execute naval gunfire rounds that we shot were artillery rounds support of their mission?’ support taskings. that we were shooting 5in versions of,’ said the official. ‘So, they have hot production lines, either in the US or overseas. They The Zumwalt-class destroyers were intended to have next-generation gunfire support capabilities, had components that were mature and but these have since been dropped. (Photo: US DoD) would use the same production line as the 155mm variant. If you could have 70% of the same parts, you save money because the army is buying off the same line as you. Now you get to save dollars in the long run. So, we kind of learned our lesson the hard way in the past,’ the official explained. A critical backdrop to last summer’s fly-off is work that the USMC is conducting with the USN to refine the requirement for NSFS. In 2015, the navy kicked off an Advanced Naval Surface Fires (ANSF) initiative that by 2016 evolved into a formal review of requirements related to self-defence, ASuW, NSFS, strike warfare, counter-intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and integrated air and missile defence. That ongoing assessment has produced a draft Initial Capabilities WWW.NAVALWARFARE.NEWS VOLUME 2 NUMBER 3 MAY/JUNE 2019 NAVAL WARFARE INTERNATIONAL 7 SURFACE FIRE SUPPORT Fired from the Mk 45, the Vulcano can strike targets at distances as far away as 90km with precision. ‘Unlike ballistic accuracies where dispersions increase with range, you have essentially consistent precision throughout the entire engagement envelope. From minimum- range engagement all the way up to the maximum range,’ he emphasised. Perri explained further that controlled surfaces on the Vulcano allow the USN to shape its trajectory to engage the target at an optimal angle – for example, to hit a vehicle under a highway overpass or flying the round to avoid a terrain feature such as a mountain or even a building – with the option to attack from a near-vertical angle. While the baseline Vulcano configuration basically flies with an inertial measurement unit and then uses GPS for navigation, The role of NSFS is still a key capability for the USN. (Photo: US DoD) advanced features in development such as a semi-active seeker are slated to give the Document (ICD), which is still being ignite after exiting the muzzle and munition the ability to strike moving targets. finalised and could set the stage for new accelerate the projectile. Perri said that the Vulcano and the Mk 45 are major acquisition programmes. Fugler Canards would deploy, and it would fly a good fit, with no major changes required of noted that ‘the ANSF draft ICD identifies like a mini Tomahawk cruise missile, said a either the munition or the gun for integration. gaps related to [NSFS]’. source familiar with the programme. While When Congress caught wind of the BAE Systems flew the weapon in a test that Lethality requirements ANSF effort, lawmakers gave the USN $11 company officials said met its objective, the Raytheon offered a naval variant of its million in the FY2017 budget and directed complexity of firing a rocket motor out of a Excalibur 1B artillery round, a US Army action on one option the requirements gun augured for reliability challenges, and round that forces in Afghanistan and Iraq assessment was considering – exploring after the navy walked away from the rocket- have used to deliver thousands of decisive a near-term 5in guided munition capability assisted LRLAP, BAE set the project aside.