US Army s ERCA prototype strikes target at 70 km distance
21 December 2020
by Ashley Roque
The US Army fired three M982A1 Excalibur weapons from its Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) prototype on 19 December, and after a rocky start the final round directly hit a target at a 70 km range.
For the past several years, the service has been looking at ways to close the field artillery gap against peer competitors such as Russia, and its final 2020 ERCA test event showed that it is one step closer to fielding such a capability.
“What we demonstrated a few minutes ago … is the success of a systems approach to upgrading our cannon system and the ERCA system is just that – a platform, the propellant, the projectiles and the fuses,” Brigadier General John Rafferty, the head of the Long-Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team, told reporters after the Saturday morning test fire.