43-Mile Cannon Shot

the russians and in many ways the chinese as well are able to outrange most of our artillery systems that harsh assessment was announced by general john m murray the first head of army futures command in a conference held in 2018 at the association of the us army conference in washington dc [Music] the us was falling behind its cold war adversaries in the artillery department not just by range but overall firepower as far back as 2015 american military studies showed that the army had to develop a new generation of artillery to catch up with the latest russian and chinese arsenal and so the us army's extended-range cannon artillery system simply known as erca was born using an innovative artillery shell called excalibur this colossal new artillery weapon has enough power speed and accuracy to hit a target from 43 miles away this is the equivalent to striking washington dc from baltimore if deployed the new system could substitute the usaf's close air support role for ground troops effectively changing u.s tactics for future operations during a 2018 conference general murray revealed the next generation russian warfare study in which the army analyzed its eastern european competitor's military capabilities and performance in ukraine [Music] murray conducted that the study was the wake up call for us to start looking at this in a more serious manner according to murray the army had discovered it was falling behind the increasing range of russian and chinese rocket systems as in the cold war epoch when the power balance constantly shifted between the us and the ussr the russians had the advantage in the rocket department as murray said it was time for the u.s to retaliate with better technology the army's extended range cannon artillery system created as a direct countermeasure to russian artillery superiority broke records during its initial testing in 2019 hitting targets from up to 38 miles away although the extended range canon artillery system is still under development it reached a new record on december 19 2020 when it hit a target from 43 miles away at the yuma proving ground in arizona brigadier general john rafferty of the us army in charge of the erca system told reporters and media outlets i don't think our adversaries have the ability to hit a target on the nose at 43 miles the standard m109 a7 pallet and self-propelled howitzer can send rounds up to a maximum of 24.4 miles erca effectively doubles that range if implemented correctly the army expects the cannon to take out targets from a position currently out of range for enemy systems the erca cannon is equipped with a 30 foot m109 a7 pallet and integrated management howard's chassis its 58 caliber gun tube replaces the 39 caliber tube used nowadays by other us artillery [Music] according to kyle mizakame from popular mechanics this longer barrel allows quote expanding gases triggered by the shell powder to act upon the projectile for a greater period of time increasing velocity to further increase the howitzer range the cannon fires gps guided raytheon made excalibur munitions using supercharged propellant [Music] this barrel and rounds combination further increases artillery ranges and firepower with an estimated fire rate of three rounds per minute future modifications include a fully automated ammo loading system that will triple the fire rate at 10 rounds per minute as part of the tests the army took three shots to study the round's range and power the first shot came up short for high winds at a high altitude failing the target by 300 feet but considering that the round had to travel almost 23 000 feet the shot actually landed very close to the target the second shot had a hardware malfunction and the third shot hit the mark successfully general murray of army futures command said to news outlets that the us army is seeking a strategic cannon that can effectively fire an enemy positions as far as a thousand miles away [Music] in an interview with ariana palwick from military.com he said quote we are looking very hard and starting down the path of hypersonics and also looking at what we call the strategic long-range cannon which conceivably could have a range of up to a thousand nautical miles [Music] in march of 2020 when news about the erca first surfaced online russian newspaper izvestia reported that the armed forces were developing a new rocket artillery shell that would increase the range of the 2535 to 60 miles currently the russian 2535 coalition or coalition 152 millimeter self-propelled howitzer has a maximum range of 49 miles similar to that of the american m109 a7 howitzer however to this day not much information is known about this prototype but in what many believe to be a second arms race reminiscent of the cold war epoch it may be true [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Dark Footage

Views: 453,641

Rating: 4.8946142 out of 5

Keywords: footage, video, army, tank, cannon, us army, extended range cannon artillery, us military, record, world record, defense updates, artillery, strategic long range cannon, us military news, us defense, us military power, dark footage, documentary, darkdocs, dark docs, dark5, dark 5

Id: f9b22KQDyZ0

Length: 5min 43sec (343 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 22 2021

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