Next-Gen Naval Gunfire Support: The USA’s AGS & LRLAP

AGS fires LRLAP

It’s easy to forget that the original rationale for the DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class centered around naval gunfire support for troops ashore, as the ship’s estimated costs have risen and its missions have proliferated. Heavily armored US battleships with massive 16-inch (406 mm) guns once performed extremely well in this role, as their volkswagen-weight shells gave enemies pause. USS Iowa was brought back into service during the Reagan era, but she was decommissioned again in 1990. That left America with a floating museum in Los Angeles, and a gap in its options.

While European manufacturers are fielding guided, long range adaptations of existing 127mm/54 and 76mm shells, the Zumwalt Class will be getting an entirely new Advanced Gun System that fires the same 155mm shells used by field artillery ashore. The goal was to combine the wide range of available 155mm shell options with extra-long range, GPS precision guidance, and rapid fire.

Of Ukraine and Wishful Thinking

• The Economist and the Telegraph urge Western leaders to confront not just Ukraine’s government but also Vladimir Putin. After 3 months of unrest the country is now expected to have early elections (the official presidential statement in Ukrainian doesn’t say when) at best, under a weak deal just signed between the government and opposition leaders. That alone may not do much to solve deep-seated problems, a decade after the Orange revolution.

• As to Mr. Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has started in her third term to take a (slightly) firmer stance, but she’s constrained by a need for Russian gas to hedge dubious energy policies. President Obama’s talk of a “line” that shouldn’t be crossed has no credibility after his about-face on Syria. Ukrainian Defense Minister Pavlo Lebedev is not even picking up the phone when Secretary Hagel tries to reach him. Putin will continue to push against an impotent EU (fear our travel bans!) and a lame duck US administration, as much as he can get away with. It is difficult to see where the fortitude to tell him to back off is going to come from. Yet in the words of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko:

“Those who underestimated Moscow’s readiness to use whatever means to maintain a sphere of influence must draw lessons from this development and help overcome Russia’s imperialistic claims.”

• Update: What’s Going On in Ukraine? Don’t Blink!