The Next Generations of Smart Shells

Excalibur GPS Shell

James Dunnigan of StrategyPage briefly discusses the next two generations of smart precision indirect close-support weapons entering service with American forces as a successor to the Copperhead laser-guided shell. They will be particularly important as a way of getting the artillery into future urban fights:

• The Excalibur GPS-guided shell (named as a possible compromised system in the recent L-3 criminal investigation)
• Its potential competitor the Small Diameter Bomb
• The Projectile Guidance Kit (PGK), a sort of “JDAM kit for ordinary artillery shells” that’s still at least 5 years away from production.

See also: U.S. Army battles for control of smart weapons, which adds political background. It also adds a GPS-guided rocket for the M270 MLRS and M142 HIMARS rocket systems to the list.