The shell game, part 2

Apparently the $150,000 price tag on Excalibur rounds is expected to drop to somewhere around $30,000 (ht:Army.ca):

When Excalibur production is scaled up by 2010, the munitions are expected to cost $30,000 each, compared with about $1,000 for an unguided artillery shell, Cawood said.

But that doesn't mean the Excalibur can't be cost-effective. One Army study showed it would take 147 shots with unguided shells to take out a target that could be dispatched with three Excalibur rounds, Cawood said.

While some critics have questioned the cost of guided projectiles, an analyst who is a frequent critic of military programs said the Excalibur's accuracy would make it worth the cost.

"It's an outstanding bullet," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Virginia-based think tank.

"The cost of the munition may be comparable to a satellite-guided bomb, but the cost of manning a firebase is a lot less than the cost of an air base," Pike said.

147 conventional shells at about $1,000 a pop - pardon the pun - versus three shells at $30,000 a pop makes Excalibur very cost-effective indeed, assuming it can perform within those parameters and on that budget. Some say the $30,000 figure might climb because of a fix required to keep the shell's guidance system battery operational in cold temperatures - right now the troops are simply instructed to keep the shells warm.

Part of the upgraded artillery plan that interested politicians and journalists haven't twigged to yet is the Modular Artillery Charge System (MACS) that propels shells a greater distance than a conventional charge could.

MACS is two different solid propellant charges which provide a complete zoning solution for 155mm artillery applications by using multiples of a basic module.

I've been reliably informed that "MACS is mostly just a new way of packaging and handling powder - and a new powder composition/shape which allows you to get more push from the same volume of powder increment." Apparently it's also more environmentally stable, so gunners don't have to adjust their variables as much. My correspondent goes on to state:

While MACS does help Excalibur go out as far as it does - it's a combination of how much powder (limits of the gun and projectile, structurally), length of the barrel (as impacted by the previous limits) and the engineering of the extended range projectiles, whether they use base-bleed (gas bleeds from a burning composition in the base of the round, filling the partial vacuum behind the base), RAP (rocket assist - which is base-bleed on steroids with the added *benny* of reducing accuracy...), or, like Excalibur, which adds gliding to base-bleed.

Not being a gunner, it took reading through that packed sentence a few times before I understood it at all. Not the brightest bulb on the porch, I know.

But the biggest surprise for me was learning that MACS can be used with conventional shells to increase range. In fact, the CF backgrounder on the M777's states that "The high-tech M777 gun is capable of firing a 155-mm shell at a rate of two to five rounds per minute while achieving high levels of accuracy with targets up to 30 km away." I find that 30km number quoted by the CF interesting given the fact that the maximum unassisted range of the gun is 24.7kms, and the 30km range can only be achieved with an assisted round.

Does that mean the CF is operating the M777 in Afghanistan with conventional shells assisted by MACS? I don't know - nobody's saying right now. But I'd be truly suprised if they weren't, given the information that's in the public domain.

Instant update: Well, confirmation didn't take long. Now the question is how much a MACS-assisted shell costs to fire off. Because MACS doesn't appreciably assist accuracy (other than by being more environmentally stable), if it still takes 147 conventional shells to destroy a target that could be taken out with just three Excalibur rounds, but a MACS-assisted conventional round costs, say, $2,000 to fire off, then Excalibur is even more cost-effective than we had assumed. That's without factoring in the 'soft' issues like reduced chance of collateral damage, etc.

Amazing what a little digging can turn up.