ATK’s PGK: Turning Shells into Precision Artillery

ATK’s PGK

Alliant Tech Systems’ GPS-guided Precision Guidance Kit hopes to do for artillery shells what Boeing’s JDAM tail kit has done for conventional bombs – or what ATK’s APMI kit has done for 120mm mortars.

The Western way of war has largely pushed conventional artillery off of the battlefield. A 200 – 300 meter CEP (Circular Error Probable, where 50% of rounds hit within that radius) just isn’t viable when you need to reduce the risks of friendly casualties and collateral damage. Attempts to improve that performance began in the 1980s, but ran into 2 big roadblocks: cost, and reliability…

Prospect of Israeli Ground Attack in Gaza Met with Concern

• A barrage of over 100 Palestinian rockets was aimed at Israeli cities on Saturday, and IDF told North Gaza residents to evacuate ahead of launching a significant attack.

• Jordan’s King is unhappy about that prospect, and US State Secretary John Kerry is echoing those concerns, but Israel doesn’t care in a post-ISIS world. People haven’t paid enough attention to PM Netanyahu’s recent speech. American officials certainly have not, and there seems to be a bit of divergence between them and Congress. Even some Israelis are less than enthused about the prospect of a ground operation.

• US officials told the NYT that according to a classified report many Iraqi military units are infiltrated with informants for Sunni extremists or Iran-backed Shiites.