Army Delays Extended Range Cannon Artillery, Reviews Tactical Fires Study

by Johnny Franks, Warrior Editorial Fellow

The United States Army is presently engaged in a substantial modernization campaign of its artillery systems, a move deemed essential to reassert its tactical and strategic supremacy amidst intensifying global power confrontations. This undertaking is a direct reaction to the imperative demand for artillery units characterized by enhanced range, precision, and lethality to neutralize the advanced capabilities of prospective adversaries.

The service is working intensely to accelerate Army artillery technologies, and has matured a handful of breakthrough systems such as  The modernization agenda is inclusive of several prominent initiatives, such as the Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA), the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), alongside augmentations to existing systems like the M109 Paladin.

Central to this modernization crusade is the ERCA program, tasked with the augmentation of the Army’s competency in executing long-range precision bombardments. In response to the newly released 2025 budget, Army acquisition chief Douglas Bush said ERCA was being cancelled do to its not being ready and mass producible for the service, according to an essay in Defense News. The service has been immersed in a Tactical Fires Study to assess the “maturity” of the ERCA technology. 

 There are, however, other promising artillery programs such as the “shaped trajectory” Excalibur round and additional artillery applications and explosives. 

Warrior Discussion With William Nelson, Deputy, Army Futures Command. 

Innovations from the ERCA effort and likely to persist, as tehy program focused on the modification of the M109A7 Paladin self-propelled howitzer by integrating a lengthier 58-caliber gun barrel, thereby enabling the discharge of 155mm artillery shells across distances surpassing 40 miles, marking a considerable enhancement over prior capabilities. The prototypes of ERCA, realized at the Picatinny Arsenal, have been the fruits of a collaborative effort across diverse Army factions, the industrial sector, and governmental collaborators, showcasing a unified endeavor towards achieving seminal breakthroughs in artillery science. Although ERCA may not continue in its current form, it seems highly feasible that the effort may return in one form of another, as there have been several successful test in recent years.