Facing threats from Russian artillery and integrated air defence systems, the US Army is developing four weapons designed to give US ground forces the edge in battle. A top priority is long-range artillery that can destroy fortified enemy positions from distances as far as 1,000 miles. The four weapons the Army hopes to begin fielding in the next few years include the long-range hypersonic weapon, the strategic long-range cannon, the Precision Strike Missile, and the Extended Range Cannon Artillery system. The US Army wants guns, big ones. The service is modernising for high-intensity combat against top adversaries, and one of the top priorities is long-range precision fires. The goal of the Long-Range Precision Fires team is to pursue range overmatch against peer and near-peer competitors, Col. John Rafferty, the team’s director of the LRPF who is part of the recently-established Army Futures Command, told reporters Wednesday at the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, DC. The Army faces challenges from a variety of Russian weapons systems, such as the artillery, multiple rocket launcher systems, and integrated air defence networks. While the Army is preparing for combat against a wide variety of adversaries, Russia is characterised as a “pacing threat,” one which has, like China, invested heavily in standoff capabilities designed to keep the US military at arms length in a fight. The US armed forces aim to engage enemy in multi-domain operations, which involves assailing the enemy across the five domains of battle: land, air, sea, space,… [Read full story]
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