Lawmakers: Army should consider new alternatives to extended range howitzer
Before the Army launches a competition next year to select an ERCA platform integrator, Congress wants to know if a new howitzer is a better option.
By ASHLEY ROQUE
on December 15, 2022 at 3:50 PM
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers have questions about the Army’s planned incremental upgrade to BAE Systems’ Paladin M109A7 self-propelled howitzer under the Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) program and want to know if it would be better to build the new tracked-platform from the ground up.
House and Senate conferees recently unveiled the compromise language in the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act and it has now passed in the House. If President Joe Biden signs the bill into law, the Army is only allowed to produce 20 ERCA prototypes and must provide authorizers with a ERCA production strategy that considers the “comparative cost and value” of a new-build versus the current Paladin-modification production approach.
Over the past several years, the service built 18 ERCA howitzer prototypes by adding a 58 caliber, 30-foot gun tube to the tracked vehicle Paladin so that soldiers can launch 155 mm rounds out to 70 km. Although the Army plans to conduct an operational assessment of the weapon in fiscal 2024, it also wants to begin a competitive competition in late FY23 where it will search for a company to integrate platform components together, Ashley John, the public affairs director for the Program Executive Office for Ground Combat Systems, told Breaking Defense today.
https://breakingdefense.com/2022/12/lawmakers-army-should-consider-new-alternatives-to-extended-range-howitzer/?_ga=2.95955550.352608795.1670984919-1085478105.1670984918
