YUMA PROVING GROUND, ARIZONA - If mere inches can separate life and death in combat, how important is 700 feet?
With conventional artillery rounds fired at long range, accuracy diminishes with distance; projectiles can land as far as 850 feet off target, a potentially fatal outcome. A wide variety of factors can cause this loss of accuracy, from minor variations in the muzzle velocity of the projectile to weather conditions in the field. Yet, when a Precision Guidance Kit, PGK, fuze with guidance capability is screwed onto a conventional round, its accuracy is correct to within 150 feet of a target.
PGK has undergone a variety of testing at U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground for about seven years and is now in production. Its latest testing to demonstrate compatibility with our European allies, involved firing PGK-enhanced rounds from the German Army's 155mm howitzer, the PzH 2000, which is significantly larger than its American equivalent, the M109A6 Paladin.
"It's a good opportunity for us to understand how PGK works when fired out of a 52-caliber tube, which differs from the 39-caliber U.S. tubes," said Pete Burke, deputy project manager for Combat Ammunition Systems. "The longer tube means longer range and higher muzzle velocity, which is something the PGK has yet been tested for, but should work in. This is to verify the performance and hopefully spark interest in Europe among our allies to buy PGKs."
In recent years, the PzH 2000 has achieved a growing popularity with other countries belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. When fully rigged, the German self-propelled howitzer weighs in at over 55 tons, nearly twice as heavy as the Paladin self-propelled howitzer, and boasts a range of nearly 40 kilometers. Partner nations within NATO need compatibility between their respective weaponry and have a keen need for a semi-guided artillery capability at relatively low cost, which makes testing the PGK fuse critical.
"Yuma is an ideal destination for artillery testing," said Hans-Peter Albert, German project manager for the PzH 2000. "The test conditions cannot be found in Europe, for we do not have these wide open spaces. YPG is a flexible organization and we really like the culture."
YPG has extensive experience testing materiel for friendly foreign nations, and in this test YPG weapons operators shared test fire duties with their counterparts in the employ of the German Army's acquisition force.
"Our gunners do the actual firing and preparatory work on the round prior to firing," said Ron Jackson, YPG test officer. "They then turn it over to the German crew."
With each test fire that took place last month, high speed camera operators used three cameras to capture the round's first 200 feet of flight at more than 2,000 frames per second, while trackers operating kineto tracking mounts filmed the round's distant flight, and also collected telemetry data from the PGK fuze in mid-air.
In addition to the data gathered, the test provided a working forum in which to discuss the possibility of future cooperative artillery programs between the United States, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
"YPG has a capability that doesn't exist anywhere else in terms of test capability and the ability to fire large caliber projectiles with long ranges and track them in flight," said James Shields, acting program executive officer for ammunition. "The degree and level of instrumentation can't be found anywhere else. We gain much more information in the limited testing we do in Yuma than anywhere else."
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