Link "Hopefully" below:

Try thisClip

and this

What is it I'm watching - just a guided shell?

 

Heres one going down range for real!!!

 

Is the square box on the upper left of the cradle a permaneet feature, or attached as required?

Carl,

See page 10 of this presentation.  Link to PDF file below:

 

"JUST" a guided shell.....Heresy, burn the unbeliever :).   Seriously just think what a 6 gun battery or even a 3 gun troop/platoon can do now in support of the manoeuver forces.  This capability is having a massive affect on how artillery is deployed and utilised.

I grant that I can see it being useful in certain scenarios, and I am certainly no expert on artillery, but the more I read - the more I see the importance of calibre and persistence.  At least as is the case when dealing with a dug-in enemy.  Once the fire has been adjusted onto the target area - do you really need every round to be guided?

 

The advantage of this sort of capability, seems to be more in providing very short precise fire missions, such as on H Hour at the start of an assault.  When it comes to counter-battery fire where you don't know the exact location of the enemy mortar/gun, or in suppressing an area, I would have thought standard rounds would have been of more use.

Couple of good questions/comments in your post below.  Deserves a better response than I have time to give right now.  Ill come back to this tomorrow sometime and put my "Commanders Intent Briefing" hat on.

ArtyEngineer,

 

Long time no see.Smoke WP here. Question for you, our boys in A'stan are getting to use Excalibur shells. The shell has gone up in price($150,000) what happened to the $80,000 that was organilly projected.

 

Smoke WP

Hey Smoke,  I have no idea what that round really costs.  Whats your source for teh $150K value?

For the March 2008 FEDLOG (you US military folk should know what that is, and some of you contractor types),

there is a list price for the Excalibur, but it's less than $150K (Smoke's must include delivery charges!).

Keep in mind though, that FEDLOG is FOUO, so don't anyone expect me to give out its actual price, NSN, or any other descriptive info not available to the open public!

 

Funny thing is, a complete M109A6 seems to list at less than a new M777!

Then again, M109A6s are refurbed & upgraded earlier models, not new builds.

M777s are all new builds, and out of a lot more shiny expensive titanium.

 

...Maybe all you guys whose countries are looking for new artillery bits should just purchase Paladins then!

And if I understand the papers correctly, that PIM'ed out M109 with the "new" Bradley/MLRS suspension and NLOS-C autoloader and other bits, took about $17M to assemble...which is still cheaper than the estimated $27million MSRP for an NLOS-C, supposedly first coming off the production line by the end of this year...

Took delivery of x number of shells and have put to use.

 

Media got wind of Excalibur and summited a" Freedom of Information" form to government.

 

Media is trying to make an issue of the cost when they are not knowledgeable about the benefits of Excalibur shells.

 

 

Problem here is,
so much of the MSM, and civilians in general, are so militarily (?) inept, ignorant, and incompetent,

and we can only dumb down our explanations so far.

A tad over $100K for precision guided shells and a tad under $2mil for the gun that shoots it is far better than a $50+mil aircraft dropping bombs, using more money in fuel than that single gun-fired PGM even costs.

 

But then who are we kidding: the MSM thinks that everybody is naturally good in their hearts, and we could put an end to wars entirely if nobody anywhere had any access at all to guns and other war stuff.

Without guns to invoke our naturally-repressed violent tendencies, we'd all sit down nice and happy together.

(just make sure we sit the MSM corporate mogul beside the jihadist who has the dagger hidden under his robe.)