By Geoff Fein
The Marine Corps is in the midst of conducting qualification testing of ATK‘s [ATK] programmable air bursting round, designed to defeat targets hidden behind barriers, according to a company official.
“The Marine Corps has a requirement to defeat targets behind walls, targets that are hidden. They needed the ability to defeat those targets,” Jim Cates, vice president and general manager integrated weapons systems, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
The Programmable Air Bursting Munition (PABM) has a specialized fuzing technique that enables the round to burst in the air behind targets so that Marines don’t have to shoot through walls to defeat a hiding target, Cates added. “You defeat it from above.”
Using a laser range finder to determine distance to target, a Marine would take that data and program the distance into the fuze, he said. The fuze uses “turns count technology” that Cates said is based on the distance to the target.
“The fire control system determines how many times the round will spin on its way to the target and once the fuse senses that number of turns it detonates,” he said.
Almost all ammunition is spin stabilized, Cates noted. “So it’s naturally spinning as part of the shooting process. We take advantage of that spin, equate that to a range, and then we use that as our air bursting technology.”
ATK has been developing PABM for probably five to six years, he added.
The Marines plan to fire the round from General Dynamics‘ [GD] Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), Cates added.
“The Marines are expecting to complete qualification by end of summer ’10, and then we will be fielding it with the Marine Corps,” he said. “We are also selling the system internationally as well.”
ATK is producing between 4,000 and 5,000 rounds for the Marine Corps right now, Cates added, and another 4,000 to 5,000 for the international market.
The Army is participating in Marine Corps qualification effort because the Mk 44 30mm Bushmaster Chain Gun is the gun system that the Marine Corps is buying, he added.
“The Army was also looking at that for FCS and they are planning to use the same 30mm ammunition that the Marine Corps is using,” Cates said.
Although the Navy also uses the Mk 44 30mm gun system on some ships, Cates said the service has not expressed an interest to date in PABM. “I think there is a potential for it to happen at some point.”
ATK is also applying the same air bursting technology for use in a smaller gun system–the Lightweight 25mm Bushmaster Chain Gun, Cates added.
“We are currently assessing the marketplace and determining where else this technology might be effective,” he said. “Yes, we believe there is a market across other calibers of ammunition, although we don’t actively have anything working right now. We believe this technology could be appropriate across a pretty wide spectrum of calibers.”
Another advantage of PABM is that each round can be independently programmed, Cates pointed out.
“You could program a series of rounds to go to the same spot, or you could program a series of rounds where each one of them would sequentially go to a different [spot]…we call it a string of pearls,” he said. “You could program the system so that you could space out the rounds over a set of targets.”
And because the Mk 44 is a dual feed gun, it can carry two different types of ammunition. “You could switch back and forth between engaging with an air bursting round and engaging with an armor piercing round if you needed to,” Cates said. “Based on feedback we’ve seen from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s a capability that will definitely be helpful to the warfighter.”