Gun System. The Army says "WECANTLIVEWITHOUTIT"!
"Why would you buy the same artillery pieces
that Napoleon would understand"?
Bush says he wants to skip a generation in weapons developement the Army says WAITAGENERATION.
Who is correct?
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, JUNE 25, 2001; PG.21-22

thier both wrong. if we gave our troops silver mini-vans & tec-9's, we'd kick everyones ass

nah, the police need LAW's to take out the stupid armed fleeing suspects.  As soon as they see one of the criminals blown to bits, no more will run from the cops.

LAW Rockets, no thanx. How 'bout Mk19 40mm grenade launchers?? 500 "bean bag" rounds would really slow a rioting mob down.

yes, I'm joking [:)][:)][bounce][heavy]

I did the artillery MOS's in the Army. 13B Tubed Arty / 13M MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) There is alot of things tubed arty can do that the MLRS can't (Such as direct fire and bunker busting) The real thing going on here is that tubed artillery takes as many as 13 soldiers to operates where MLRS takes 3. Older Arty is slower and takes more logistics than the new missle/rocket arty. But, what this really comes down to is budgets and lack of manpower. This skipping a generation stuff is B.S.

I think they should develop a good fiber-optic guided missile (FOGM).  Mount a launcher of six on a Hummer, with striking range of 20 miles or so.  The missiles can take out flying helicopters, can coordinate with radar for counterbattery fire, Hummers give it shoot-and-scoot capability, can take out armor.  Seems way simpler, cheaper, and effective than this crusader program.  We could probably have the FOGM system fielded within a year.
[img]http://efogm.redstone.army.mil/newpics/fuhome.jpg[/img]
[url]http://efogm.redstone.army.mil/fupg.html[/url]

I thought the Crusader was a tubed artillery weapon. IIRC it looks like an M-109(? track arty), with a larger turret, and a very long heavy barreled gun. It is supposed to be able to fire "smart" rounds. I dont think it does anything with "dumb" rounds that current arty doesn't. I could be wrong, anyone got more info?

It's a super-dooper self-propelled artillery system, with all sorts of bells and whistles. Very high rate of fire, integrated with all sorts of communications systems.

The main problem is that it's heavy. This makes it hard to deploy, and difficult to use in areas with unimproved roads and bridges.

It was my understanding that is is going to use a liquid propelant system where a round that is only projectile is feed into the breech than 2 self ingniting propelants are sprayed behind the round. Such a system is advertised as having a higher rate of fire and muzzle velocity than conventional rounds.

[rail]

The bigger they are...

We should keep it simple.

They dropped the liquid propellent. Couldn't get it to work. Too bad, since it could have had major savings in weight and volume for the propellent.

Currently, everyone in the world has better artillery than we do.  The M109A6 Paladin (and M198 for that matter) with its 39 caliber tube can only fire a RAP out to 30,100 m or a BBICM to 28,300.  To get those ranges you have to us high charges (M203 series) crews are limited to about a half dozen or so a day in peace time, maybe 2 dozen in war time.  With its standard propellants, M4A2 its range is only 14, 500 m.  When you look at weapons like the PzH 2000, ASL90 (52cal), 2S19, G6, they all out range use by quite a bit.  Our only saving grace is we normally have air superiority, are better at coordination and long range target acquisition. So often range is not all it is crack up to be.

The Crusader gives the artillery a system that can conduct MRSI (Multi Round Simo Impact) mission unlike current system that maybe do a 2 round MRSI, the Crusader can do a 8-10 MRSI at almost all its ranges.  In effect each howitzer now will have the fire power of a whole battery.  Also the Crusader is able to keep up with the maneuver forces, the Paladin cannot keep up with M1 or M2/3.   The Crusader will use MACS (Modular Artillery Charge System) so there will be war charges and peacetime charge no longer be green, white and red bad MACS will eventually replace them all.  You can combine the MACS in any order, (no more charge 1,2,3 etc.) and there will be an ignition pad on both sides of the MACS.  

Yeah, as  understand it, Crusader gives the ability to simulate the devastating simultaneous impact of an MLRS system over an area target, while using conventional tube artillery. The flexible charges allow simultaneous impact of a whole string of rounds. Remember, artillery is the "king of battle". I'd hate to skimp on it if this system is really that good.