The American “God of War” has now existed for several decades. The US military cannot replace him

Forget the tank, the fighter plane and even the drone. Artillery is the most important weapon on the modern battlefield, just as it was 100, 200 or even 300 years ago. It was not for nothing that Stalin nicknamed artillery the “god of war”.

It is therefore extremely problematic that the world’s leading army, the American army, fails to develop a new howitzer. By trying and failing three times over the course of a generation to acquire new heavy artillery, the army finds itself stuck with improved versions of the same howitzers it has used for 61 years.

The latest artillery debacle was alarming, if not terribly surprising. On March 8, Doug Bush — the Army’s top weapons buyer — told reporters that the service had completed testing of a new, longer-range howitzer.

“We completed the prototyping activity last fall,” Bush said of the extended-range gun, a new model of the existing M-109 tracked howitzer with a very long barrel. “Unfortunately, it was not successful enough to move directly into production.”

The cancellation of the ERCA howitzer leaves the Army without a howitzer under development to replace its approximately 800 existing M-109s, which the service fielded beginning in 1963 and upgraded several times.

It’s a familiar, if uncomfortable, position for American gunners as they watch, from afar, thousands of Russian and Ukrainian howitzers explode along the 600-mile front line of the broader war of 26 months led by Russia against Ukraine. It is these howitzers which systematically inflict the heaviest losses in this fierce war.

The Army first attempted to replace its M-109s in the 1990s. The service developed an ultra-heavy, highly automated tracked howitzer it called the Crusader. The Crusader weighed 43 tons, compared to 28 tons for the M-109, but its gun fired a standard shell 25 miles compared to 19 miles for the M-109.

The Pentagon canceled the Crusader in 2002, citing its weight and cost. The new plan, after the Crusader’s demise, was to develop a new tracked howitzer as part of the Army’s ambitious “Future Combat Systems,” a family of lightweight robotic and semi-robotic combat vehicles connected via a network of high-tech radio data.

FCS was an iconic debacle that consumed billions of dollars in development, never really worked in the real world, and was conceptually flawed even when it worked. The proliferation of drones and radio jammers argues in favor heavier vehicles, no lighter those – and those who could fight while electronically isolated.

The FCS collapsed in 2009, taking with it the second new howitzer model in just 10 years. Stung twice in a decade, the Army took what officials might have considered a cautious approach to designing a third new howitzer.

The service adopted the latest upgrade to the M-109 and, among other improvements, replaced its 23-foot gun with a 30-foot gun. With its new cannon, the extended-range cannon artillery could launch a shell a staggering 46 miles. An ERCA battery could potentially target enemy forces without risking return fire from enemy howitzers.

But this cautious approach didn’t work either. While testing the new howitzer starting in 2020, the Army found that the longer barrel was also more durable. fragile barrel. The Army expects a howitzer barrel to last for thousands of rounds, so gunners can fire without risking an accidental explosion. The ERCA’s longer barrel did not meet the durability standard.

So we’re back to the drawing board for a military that should be at the cutting edge of artillery technology, but instead finds itself decades behind. Even the cash-strapped Ukrainian army has newer, more powerful European-made howitzers.

The Americans could simply follow the Ukrainians’ lead and solicit ideas – or even a direct sale – from the world’s leading howitzer manufacturers, including the Swedish company Bofors, now part of the former British multinational BAE Systems, and the South Korean company Hanwha. While importing artillery would be embarrassing for the richest military on the planet, it might also be the only way to re-equip America’s batteries.

If there’s any comfort to be found in the Army’s artillery debacle, it’s that America’s gunners aren’t solely dependent on their aging M-109s. They also operate hundreds of rocket launchers and tracked and wheeled missiles.

The wheeled main launcher, the famous High Mobility Artillery Rocket System – aka Himars – is widely considered one of the best artillery systems in the world. Accelerating from one firing position to the next, a HIMARS battery can deliver precision Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles up to 57 miles away while avoiding return rocket fire. Alternatively, the box containing six GMLRS missiles can be replaced with one containing a single Long-Range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), capable of striking a target 190 miles away – although only obsolete versions at short range were supplied to Ukraine.

But the best armies use a combination of howitzers and rockets – and for good reason. Howitzers fire many smaller, closer, and faster rounds. Launchers fire fewer and larger shells, farther but more slowly. If the Americans fail to finally acquire a new howitzer after three decades of testing, they risk losing their close, rapid firepower.

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