screencap of Army photo

The prototype M1299 ERCA armoured howitzer test-firing at Yuma Proving Ground on March 6, 2020.

WASHINGTON: After decades of neglect, the Army is vigorously investing in artillery, creating new units and new weapons — everything from long-barreled howitzers to hypersonic missiles.

Now the service has made a major decision to expand the artillery force by creating new battalions to operate the new XM1299 Extended Range Cannon Artillery, a tracked, armored howitzer with double the range of current cannon, the director of artillery modernization at Army Futures Command told me.

Much remains to be determined: how many ERCA battalions to build, what will be the mix of active-duty and National Guard units, and where to pull the personnel from in a service whose endstrength will be static, at best. The ERCA program itself is one of the Army’s highest priorities, and the service has moved billions from lower-priority programs to fund it and other Long Range Precision Fires weapons. But the entire Army budget is under intense pressure in the post-COVID fiscal crunch.

“We’re going to grow battalions,” Brig. Gen. John Rafferty said in an exclusive interview. “We’ll figure out how to pay the pay the bills for that in terms of people [drawn] from other spots in the Army.”

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. graphic from Army data

Breaking Defense graphic from Army data. KEY: ERCA = Extended Range Cannon Artillery. GMLRS-ER: Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System – Extended Range. PrSM = Precision Strike Missile. MRC = Mid-Range Capability. Not shown: Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), whose range is classified.

Artillery At Every Level

A significant nuance in the Army plan: the new ERCA battalions will belong to Division Artillery (DIVARTY) commands. Why does that matter? Today, DIVARTY units have staffs for planning and coordination, but no permanently assigned artillery of their own, only whatever batteries they borrow from either higher headquarters (corps) or subordinate ones (brigades). Giving DIVARTY their own long-range weapons provides division commanders a new tool to shape the flow of battle on a much larger scale than the village-by-village, neighborhood-by-neighborhood struggle of counterinsurgency.

ERCA’s just one part of the Army’s top-priority modernization drive, the development of a whole family of Long-Range Precision Fires weapons to take on artillery-heavy adversaries like Russia and China. The Army was already creating five Multi-Domain Task Forces equipped with multiple types of missiles – subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic, with ranges of 1,100 miles and up – that will report directly to theater HQs.

With the ERCA battalions at the division level, and Multi-Domain Task Forces at theater level, the Army will fill longstanding gaps in its order of battle and create a hierarchy of artillery units, one where every level has longer-ranged and more expensive weapons than the one below:

Army photo

Lockheed’s prototype Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) fires from an Army HIMARS launcher truck in its first flight test, December 2019.

  • Armored brigades will retain their existing artillery battalions, equipped with the M109 Paladin, a tracked and armored howitzer; but they’ll get access to new and improved Rocket Assisted Projectiles (RAPs). Paladins fire 155mm ammunition, reaching ranges of almost 25 miles if the new XM1113 rocket-boosted shells are used. (The Paladins are being upgraded from the M109A6 model to the M109A7, a program called Paladin Integrated Management, but both versions share the same gun, with the PIM upgrade focusing on automotive components).
  • Armored divisions will gain the new ERCA battalions, equipped with the M1299. This is a new armored howitzer using the Paladin PIM chassis but a new turret, new propellant, and an almost 50 percent longer cannon barrel (58 caliber instead of 39) that can fire the same 155mm ammunition as Paladin, but much farther: over 40 miles for the rocket-assisted XM1113 shell. Future ramjet-boosted rounds will extend range even further.
  • Corps headquarters will retain their existing brigades of rocket/missile launchers – using a mix of wheeled HIMARS launchers and tracked MLRS ones – but gain new, longer-ranged munitions to shoot out of them. The Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS), with a 43-mile range, will be replaced by GMLRS-Extended Range, now in testing and able to fire over 90 miles. And the Reagan-era Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), with a range of more than 185 miles, will be replaced by the new Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), with a range greater than 300. (Future upgrades will increase PrSM’s range, potentially as much as three-fold).
  • Finally, several theater commanders will gain one or more of the new Multi-Domain Task Force units. The Army plans two in the Pacific, one in Europe, one for the Arctic, and one for global response. While MDTF arrangements are still in flux and are likely to be custom-tailored to a given mission, the default design – as revealed in a recent paper issued by the Army Chief of Staff – will include two batteries of long-range missiles. One battery, called Mid-Range Capability (MRC) but be capable of firing further than 1,100 miles, will wield supersonic SM-6 Standard Missiles and subsonic Tomahawks (both already in service with the Navy). The other battery will field the new Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (co-developed with the Navy), whose classified range is likely several thousand miles.
  • Theater HQs will also get a new coordinating element called a Theater Fires Command to oversee all these long-range assets. Currently, Rafferty said, the theater-level Army Service Component Commands (ASCCs) lack the staff to plan such complex bombardments, gather intelligence on targets in peacetime, or coordinate adequately with allied artillery. The new Fires Commands are meant to plug that gap.
Army graphic

A notional organization for a future Multi-Domain Task Force, with weapons ranging from hypersonic missiles to electronic warfare.

Now, all these arrangements are designed to be flexible. Higher headquarters routinely lend their artillery to the next echelon down, the better to reinforce a decisive point; or take direct control of subordinate units’ artillery, the better to coordinate a centralized fire plan. In particular, the divisional ERCA battalions need to be able to reinforce the frontline brigade combat teams and fight alongside the M109s. That’s why the ERCA is built on the M109A7 Paladin chassis, adding a new gun to the existing armor protection and automotive mobility.

“That’s one of the reasons why we feel so strongly that in a heavy division, ERCA needs to have a similar level of protection and mobility as the Paladin units it’s reinforcing,” Rafferty told me. “That’s one of the fundamentals of fire support planning.”

(That said, the Army is also exploring foreign-made, lighter-weight, lower-cost wheeled howitzers – but not for its tank units. Those wheeled howitzers will accompany wheeled and relatively lightly armored 8×8 Strykers).

The Army is currently building 18 ERCA prototypes, a full battalion’s worth, for a year-long operational assessment beginning in late 2023. To meet this schedule, the test unit will be an existing Paladin battalion converted to fire ERCA, rather than a new unit created from scratch like subsequent ERCA battalions.

In future land warfare, Rafferty told me, the Army expects Paladin, ERCA, and GMLRS rockets to handle the vast majority of targets, simply because they’re less expensive per shot than longer-range systems. But those longer-range weapons – Precision Strike Missile, Mid-Range Capability, and Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon – will play a vital role attacking top-priority targets deep inside enemy lines, especially in the vastness of the Pacific.

That requires rethinking traditional divisions of labor between Army artillery, on the one hand, and Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps strike aircraft on the other, Rafferty acknowledged. But the Army is seeking to support and supplement airpower, not replace it, he emphasized, with priority targets including both anti-aircraft defenses and enemy ships.

The signal from the combatant commanders has been very clear that surface-to-surface long range fires is absolutely essential in penetrating and disintegrating Anti-Access/Area Denial [defenses],” he said. “The ability to attack maritime targets from land is another of those loud and clear demand signals from the combatant commands.”

Besides, he said, in a world of great power competition, “there’s plenty of work for everybody.”