Non-Subscriber Extract
Make or break: trials hold key to US Navy firepower decision
By Nick Brown
12 March 2008
In early 2008, trials shots of two key US Navy long-range naval fire support programmes rang out across gunnery ranges, the culmination of substantial reliability engineering programmes to reassure faith in the projects following a series of failures in 2005.
A lot was riding on these shots and disappointingly, the results were a mixed bag of hits and misses for both Raytheon's Extended Range Guided Munition (ERGM) and Alliant Techsystems' (ATK's) Ballistic Trajectory Extended Range Munition (BTERM).
The roots of these programmes can be traced back to the US Department of Defense's (DoD's) Naval Surface Fire Support (NSFS) study programme that began in 1992, the year that the navy's Iowa-class big gun battleships finally paid off (although they were only struck from the register in 2006 - 64 years after the lead ship was launched). Two years later, this resulted in a plan to upgrade the fleet's 5 inch/54-calibre main guns to 155 mm/60-calibre weapons and develop advanced precision-guided munitions.
Both programmes were subsequently cancelled and then partially resurrected into their current form. The gun evolved into the United Defense (now BAE Systems) Advanced Gun System (AGS) slated for the navy's new DDG 1000, Zumwalt-class destroyers and the shell into three separate programmes.
The furthest out is the BAE Systems-led long-range land attack projectile (LRLAP) and the two nearer-term programmes developed as the Extended Range Munition programme.
The latter is the umbrella under which the Texas Instruments (now Raytheon) ERGM and ATK's BTERM are being run, which aims to provide an extended-range capability for the Mk 45 Mod 4 main gun, itself upgraded and reinforced for the forces involved in extended range launches.
Both ERGM and BTERM have had something of a difficult gestation, but are now approaching a tipping point: either service-ready variants will enter production, or the navy will officially lose interest in the programmes and cancel them outright.
Mike Heibel, ATK's BTERM programme manager, told Jane's that he is funded to the end of this fiscal year, but that he has no more trials funded or planned and is "ready and willing to discuss go-forward plans with the navy, whenever they are willing to do so".
The fate of both programmes should be clearer by the end of 2008, following a series of make-or-break reliability gate firing trials planned for ERGM in the third quarter of the year (although funding is currently approved for ERGM to undertake a total of 60 trial firings including at-sea tests in 2010).
As things stand, it could go either way.
Three BTERM rounds were trialled at White Sands Missile Range on 22 January 2008. The first two boosted shots - both unguided rounds - performed well and met all of the requirements of the trial, but the third firing - of a guided round - failed and dropped well short, into the White Sands Monument national park.
An ATK spokesperson told Jane's that the third round suffered a rocket motor ignition issue. "We verified that our guidance electronics worked and attempted to guide the round; we are now analysing the data to see what happened. We will be working with the navy to determine our next steps."
Congress funded these trials and other BTERM development, despite a stated lack of interest from the navy, as it believed the service was putting all of its eggs in one basket with the ERGM programme. This latest failure is believed to have done little to raise the round's stock with the navy.
The latest trial firings of an unspecified number of ERGM rounds (four guided and four unguided shots were planned) were carried out in the first week of February 2008, with similarly split results. Although few details were officially available on the trials as IDR went to press, one of the shots is understood to have worked and the others to have failed to various degrees.
Image: ERGM's terminal descent phase is predicated on a vertical dive to ensure maximum lethality from the unitary warhead. (Raytheon)