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In modernizing for the future battlefield, the Army is taking on the key challenge of developing longrange, deep-strike capabilities that can attack and destroy targets from miles away in any weather.
At the heart of this work, which is one of the service's top modernization priorities, is the Long-Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team, which saw "another exciting year," said team Director Brig. Gen. John Rafferty.
The team's continuing activities include the Extended Range Cannon Artillery system, the Precision Strike Missile and the Strategic Long-Range Cannon, as well as emerging efforts focused on manned-unmanned High Mobility Artillery Rocket System concepts and Synchronized High-Optempo Targeting.
Rafferty emphasized the importance of the U.S. Army Futures Command's Project Convergence experiments and the impact they have had across the Long-Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team's portfolio.
"We started with Project Convergence 20 last fall," he said. "It was an experiment at Yuma Proving Ground, [Arizona,] in the dirt, with engineers and operators, figuring things out in a combined arms environment."
Noting that Futures Command's U.S. Army Joint Modernization Command is taking the lead in planning and executing this fall's Project Convergence 21, Rafferty said, "It would be an oversimplification to say it's going to be bigger and better, but the fact is that it is going to be bigger and better. And it's going to be better because our [scenarios] are very well structured to highlight the combined arms and cross-domain synergies that can be achieved with these new capabilities that we're developing."
In terms of emerging capabilities, the Long-Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team is continuing its "full-court press" on developing the signature systems that are part of the Army's top modernization efforts, known as the 31 plus four programs, Rafferty said. It also continues to work closely with the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command at places such as Yuma Proving Ground and White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
Extended Range Cannon Artillery
One of those original signature systems is the Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) system, which includes an improved howitzer platform, new projectiles, new propellant and new fuses.
"We've continued to have success with target hits at ranges of 70 kilometers," Rafferty said. The program also has undergone "a pretty significant milestone," transitioning the prototype platform from the...