thedrifter
10-07-07, 05:00 PM
Precision mortar has fans, but it lacks funds
By Kris Osborn - kosborn@militarytimes.com
Posted : December ,
Army commanders are trying to resurrect funding for the canceled Precision Guided Mortar Munition , a laser-guided 120mm mortar shell designed to hit one-meter targets from up to 10 kilometers away.
Future funding was terminated by Congress last December, after 10 years and roughly $100 million of development with several contractors. Nevertheless, ATK the primary developer since 2004, continues testing.
During a May 17 test at the Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., shells hit an armored personnel carrier from 7 kilometers away, said officials with the company, based in Edina, Minn.
Lt. Col. John Lewis, product manager for mortar systems at the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., did not comment on the issue of funding for PGMM, but did praise the weapon’s accuracy.
“PGMM will provide a great capability to the field,” Lewis said.
Commanders in Afghanistan have written several times this year to request the munition.
In April, the commander of the 10th Mountain Division wrote to the commander of the Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga., to say that PGMM would help hit otherwise unreachable targets in populated, urban areas.
“Our recent military operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq underscore the immediate and significant need for an organic, responsive, precision strike indirect fire munition,” Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakley wrote in an April 2 letter.
“In the counterinsurgency fight, the PGMM provides the capability of delivering a relatively small amount of ordnance for precision engagements, limiting collateral damage. The 10th Mountain Division strongly supports the PGMM program and recommends an immediate restoration of funding.”
U.S. light infantry units have had difficulty moving heavier mortar rounds through the mountains, Freakley wrote.
“Our recent experience in Afghanistan indicates that a precision-strike capability would also be extremely valuable when conducting combat operations at higher elevations, where maneuvering heavier fire support systems is difficult,” he wrote.
Three months later, the commanding general of XVIII Airborne Corps sent an operational needs statement to Pentagon.
“This capability is critically needed within the next 12 months. As troop levels in theater begin to drop, our units cannot afford to miss opportunities to kill the enemy due to lack of organic precision indirect fire,” Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin III wrote in the July 17 statement.
And in August, the headquarters of the U.S. Combined Joint Task Force at the Bagram airfield in Afghanistan sent a second operational needs statement, asking the Army to buy and quickly field precision-guided munitions for the M119A2 105mm towed howitzer and 120mm mortar.
The rules of engagement in Afghanistan “limits the use of conventional artillery and mortar projectiles in support of combat operations,” said the Aug. 17 statement, signed by Col. Mark Murray, Joint Fires and Effects coordinator.
For instance, enemy targets in Iraq and Afghanistan are often deliberately hiding in buildings and civilian areas, said one Army official in the Pentagon. A week later, Gen. Richard Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, wrote that the Army was considering the requests.
“If the Army determines that PGMM is the best system to meet this operational requirement, then we will seek to reinstate the program,” Cody wrote in an Aug. 24 letter to Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Ellie
By Kris Osborn - kosborn@militarytimes.com
Posted : December ,
Army commanders are trying to resurrect funding for the canceled Precision Guided Mortar Munition , a laser-guided 120mm mortar shell designed to hit one-meter targets from up to 10 kilometers away.
Future funding was terminated by Congress last December, after 10 years and roughly $100 million of development with several contractors. Nevertheless, ATK the primary developer since 2004, continues testing.
During a May 17 test at the Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., shells hit an armored personnel carrier from 7 kilometers away, said officials with the company, based in Edina, Minn.
Lt. Col. John Lewis, product manager for mortar systems at the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., did not comment on the issue of funding for PGMM, but did praise the weapon’s accuracy.
“PGMM will provide a great capability to the field,” Lewis said.
Commanders in Afghanistan have written several times this year to request the munition.
In April, the commander of the 10th Mountain Division wrote to the commander of the Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga., to say that PGMM would help hit otherwise unreachable targets in populated, urban areas.
“Our recent military operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq underscore the immediate and significant need for an organic, responsive, precision strike indirect fire munition,” Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakley wrote in an April 2 letter.
“In the counterinsurgency fight, the PGMM provides the capability of delivering a relatively small amount of ordnance for precision engagements, limiting collateral damage. The 10th Mountain Division strongly supports the PGMM program and recommends an immediate restoration of funding.”
U.S. light infantry units have had difficulty moving heavier mortar rounds through the mountains, Freakley wrote.
“Our recent experience in Afghanistan indicates that a precision-strike capability would also be extremely valuable when conducting combat operations at higher elevations, where maneuvering heavier fire support systems is difficult,” he wrote.
Three months later, the commanding general of XVIII Airborne Corps sent an operational needs statement to Pentagon.
“This capability is critically needed within the next 12 months. As troop levels in theater begin to drop, our units cannot afford to miss opportunities to kill the enemy due to lack of organic precision indirect fire,” Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin III wrote in the July 17 statement.
And in August, the headquarters of the U.S. Combined Joint Task Force at the Bagram airfield in Afghanistan sent a second operational needs statement, asking the Army to buy and quickly field precision-guided munitions for the M119A2 105mm towed howitzer and 120mm mortar.
The rules of engagement in Afghanistan “limits the use of conventional artillery and mortar projectiles in support of combat operations,” said the Aug. 17 statement, signed by Col. Mark Murray, Joint Fires and Effects coordinator.
For instance, enemy targets in Iraq and Afghanistan are often deliberately hiding in buildings and civilian areas, said one Army official in the Pentagon. A week later, Gen. Richard Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, wrote that the Army was considering the requests.
“If the Army determines that PGMM is the best system to meet this operational requirement, then we will seek to reinstate the program,” Cody wrote in an Aug. 24 letter to Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Ellie