Quote:
Originally Posted by gunnut
A lot has been said about naval gun fire support, or the lack thereof by the US Navy right now. The USN is working on the AGS, a new 6" gun of extreme complexity and price tag to equip the DDX for the NGFS role.
Instead of spending billions of dollars on a new destroyer and a new gun system, why not just adapt the army's 155mm howitzer for this role?
Is it possible to create a mission module or 2 for this system to be carried on the LCS to perform the gun fire support role?
A gun is a gun, right? The 155mm howitzer is pretty good at lobbing shells. Why create the AGS to fulfill this single role?
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The USMC has stated a near-term, threshold/objective range requirement of 76km/117km (41nm/63nm) for NGFS.
The M777 has a max range of 40km with assisted projectiles. The AGS with LRLAP will have a max range of 153km. So there's a bit of a difference in capability here.
There are a number of munitions under development for standard 155mm guns that could improve this (e.g. Sabre, Vulcano, Impaqt), so this situation may change over time.
The AGS also has a sustained rate of fire of 10rnds/min, which no US Army system can do (short of the canceled Crusader).