How the Army is maturing tech for an air defense cannon

The Army is maturing technology for a cannon capable of firing hypervelocity projectiles for the air defense mission, according to the director of the service’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office.

The RCCTO, which stood up a product office for the Multidomain Artillery Cannon system in July, is assessing hypervelocity gun system work already completed by the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office, as well as data from its own canceled Extended Range Cannon Artillery, or ERCA, system to inform the prototype’s development, Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch told Defense News in an interview ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference.

While the ERCA cannon is an offensive capability, the MDACS fits in “as part of an air defense construct in a similar space, from a threat perspective, as [the Indirect Fire Protection Capability],” Rasch said. “[But it has] slightly better performance, we believe, in some areas, and also potentially a lower cost-per-shot, which makes it very attractive to the Army.”

The ERCA, a 58-caliber cannon mounted on a Paladin Integrated Management howitzer, was intended to nearly double the range of current artillery systems — from roughly 30-40 kilometers out to 70 kilometers and beyond. It was canceled this year in favor of searching for more readily available capabilities.

The IFPC system is designed to defend fixed and semi-fixed sites from rockets, artillery and mortars, as well as cruise missiles and drones. The first interceptor to be used in the IFPC system is Raytheon’s AIM-9X missile, but the Army is currently looking for additional interceptors.

The service has consistently been on the wrong side of the cost curve when it comes to defeating air threats since the proliferation of drones on the battlefield, having to shoot Patriot interceptors at cheap drones in some instances, for example.

The prototype cannon that RCCTO is developing will use both the PIM chassis and the 58-caliber cannon, Rasch said, along with the new hypervelocity projectile and a multifunction precision radar tuned for surveillance and the ability to track high-speed rounds.

The system will also have a multidomain battle manager that would tie into the Integrated Battle Command System, or IBCS, the central nervous system of missile defense that ties sensors and shooters together across the battlefield.

Much like the RCCTO did with the Mid-Range Capability missile and its Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, it will build a battery of capability — once the technology is ready — and “get it to a unit to … put it through its paces in an operationally relevant environment,” Rasch said.

Doing so will allow officials to “see how it really fits in our construct,” he added.

The Strategic Capabilities Office “has leveraged some of the components” from the ERCA system, according to Rasch, but the office has made modifications where necessary to overcome some of the technological issues, including gun tube wear and tear, the ERCA program ran into.

“That is probably one of the bigger issues and concerns,” Rasch said, but in addition to design changes, “you also have to think about the mission that we’re developing and designing the system to go do — execute an air defense mission — which is a different mission set than a long-range artillery mission. … We’re not going to be shooting volleys of artillery.”

The soldier assessment will also determine whether the wear on a cannon occurring earlier than would be expected on a traditional system is worth the capability it delivers, Rasch said.

“We have to prove that out over the next couple of years,” he noted.

The work within the Strategic Capabilities Office, meanwhile, “has put us well down the path on some of the technical challenges, some of the robustness challenges and reliability challenges that we were having with early ERCA,” Rash said. “We’ve already made some design implementations that will mitigate some of those as we continue to put the system to the test.”

The Army is waiting for Congress to appropriate fiscal 2025 funding for the program, but the service’s goal, according to Rasch, is to get a prototype battery out and into soldiers’ hands in FY27.

The service would then hope to hold an operational assessment in FY28, doing so with a battery comprising eight cannons, four MFPRs and two multidomain battle managers.

Developing a capability along the lines of a defensive cannon system will also take some pressure off expensive air defense units, which also have some of the highest operational tempos across the force.

“In the past, it’s been, ‘We need Patriot [air and missile defense]’ … [so] we end up sending the whole Patriot battalion,” Rasch said. “[But] there is a strong desire from the Army to have the flexibility in how we employ air defense capability based upon the threat.”