Excalibur not performing as hoped

Further to our discussions here and here of the Excalibur GPS-guided artillery round, Jane's has an update on some development issues the manufacturers are facing:

Raytheon representatives told Jane's in early October 2006 that by then 47 Excalibur development rounds had been fired, with another 45 to go, in advance of a 15-round limited user trial (LUT) that would precede in-theatre deployment of the initial capability version (Block Ia-1). The latter has no base-bleed unit fitted and is restricted to firing with a MACS (modular artillery charge system) Zone 4 propelling charge. It had been planned to begin fielding the Block Ia-1 in early 2006. However, in a user trial Excalibur had achieved only 60 per cent reliability (seven out of 15 rounds reaching the target), against the threshold figure of 85 per cent and objective of 94 per cent. Further improvements had been subsequently introduced and another 15-round first-article test was due in November 2006. Thereafter Block Ia-1 production verification testing was expected to involve another 30 rounds. [my emphasis]

A guided round's sole raison d'être is its accuracy - otherwise, how can the price per firing be justified? This is a useful armament, in concept. Raytheon and BAE need to deal with this before their attempted realization of that concept falls off target as well.