ATK’s PGK: Turning Shells into Precision Artillery
Jul 14, 2014 17:14 UTCLatest updates[?]: Budgets to 2015; $36 million Army cut in FY 2014 to pay for PGK's more expensive competitor?; DOT&E testing report; Background section added.
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…
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