XM30 vehicles unleash Apache-like 50mm cannon power, doubling range and featuring advanced targeting to dominate battlefield threats.
By Kris Osborn, Warrior
The U.S. Army is bringing Apache-helicopter-like chain gun firepower to its ground armored vehicles through the integration of a next-generation 50mm Bushmaster Chain Gun onto its emerging XM30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle.
The 50mm canon, built by Northrop Grumman, is engineered to blend a variety of emerging, high-tech armored vehicle attack technologies into a single system -- to include advanced fire-control, automated targeting sensors, next-gen ammunition, new computer processing speed and longer-range medium caliber attack options. According to Northrop information, the new 50mm cannon can hit ranges more than twice as far as the roughly 2 kilometer range of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s existing M242 25mm cannon. “Dozens of countries have either parity or overmatch to the Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s M242,” a Northrop statement says. The 50mm is being engineered to address this potential disparity, by hitting ranges well over 4km.
Army-Industry Cooperation
The Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command at Picatinny Arsenal and Northrop Grumman’s Armament Systems have partnered to engineer, test and deliver the new cannon. While called a 50mm cannon, the new weapon represents a new, high tech iteration of Chain Gun technology first developed as a high-speed 30mm gun for the Apache Attack helicopter.
Chain Gun Technology
The evolution of Chain Gun attack technology has gone through several significant steps. The Apache 30mm gun, called the M230, provides an initial technological foundation from which subsequent land-fire applications have emerged – such as the existing vehicle-mounted 30mm Bushmaster Chain Gun and the new 50mm Chain Gun, or cannon. A Chain Gun is described as a type of auto-cannon that uses “an external source of power to cycle the weapon rather than diverting energy from the cartridge,” using a continuous loop.
The 50mm cannon incorporates adaptations of the original Apache 30mm Chain Gun technology, which fires a fast-paced belt of “linked” ammunition. While equipped with targeting technology for individual targets, the Apache 30mm can often be used as somewhat of an “area” weapon to blanket an area with dispersed, mobile rapid-fire attack. Such a tactic can both lay down suppressive fire, enabling ground troops to maneuver or itself directly destroy small, moving ground targets.
The new 50mm evolved Chain Gun systems makes use of a “linkless” ammunition technology. This can slow down the pace of fire, from 600 to 200 shots per minute in some cases, bringing precision and higher levels of destruction upon heavier enemy targets, In development for roughly 12 years, the 50mm cannon represents a new technical effort to engineer what might be called a “middle ground” kind of attack cannon; it must not only bring more firepower, range, precision and lethality to armored combat , but also integrate into the kinds of expeditionary future armored vehicles sought after by the Army. In effect, the new cannon represents a new sphere of attack options, lodging itself as a new attack option positioned between a 30mm chain gun such as that fired by the Stryker -- and a heavier 120mm cannon fired by an Abrams tank.
The Army’s 50mm canon aligns with the services’ future armored combat vehicle strategy which aims to both harness the lethality and survivability afforded by new technologies, yet merge it with unprecedented levels of maneuverability, speed and deployability.
Guided Ammunition
Emerging guided ammunition for the 50mm could extend range out to more than 7km, Northrop information states. The guided technology, weapons developers say, could draw upon GPS and Inertial Measurement Unit technology to enable a round to slightly adjust course while “in-flight,” improving the ability for the weapon to hit a moving target.
A proximity fuse, for instance, is an existing technology now being adapted to the 50mm, Northrop weapons developers say; it will enable a round to explode in the area of a target instead of attacking in a more narrow or linear way. This kind of blast effect brings a possibility to disperse lethal, explosive materials across a wider area and destroy different kinds of targets such as groups of on-the-move enemy fighters.
Given this ability to use proximity and air burst fuses, the 50mm will bring a new ability to destroy targets in “defilade” or otherwise not observable to attackers due to an obstruction such as a rock or wall. By exploding at a predetermined point above or near the intended target, airburst rounds disperse lethal explosive material such that it can destroy an enemy hiding behind a rock. While airburst rounds already exist, and can for instance be fired from a Stryker-mounted 30mm gun, the Army and Northrop are adapting the technology to the 50mm.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University