Naval Gunfire For The Rich

Navy Times is reporting tonight that there are signs Raytheon continues to fall short developing its reliable rocket-powered munition for 5" guns already deployed on US Navy Cruisers and Destroyers. There is nothing good about this news.

The end for ERGM, if it is imminent, would come just weeks after multiple munitions flunked test shots, according to an industry source.

A Raytheon spokesman insisted that the tests in February were not failures. He said Raytheon was testing for “specific functionalities, not testing for overall functionality” of the rounds.

Cancellation of the ERGM would leave the Navy with only one other source for a long-range, precision 5-inch round — Alliant Techsystems, which is developing a ballistic trajectory extended-range munition (BTERM). The BTERM is similar to ERGM but has had serious test problems of its own.

Both munitions were intended to give Navy ships the ability to strike targets with great accuracy from more than 50 miles away. If they worked, they would give some cruisers and destroyers long-range precision fire support from the sea for Marines ashore.

The article goes on to say the price of the Raytheon ERGM has risen from $45,000 to $191,000 per round. Ugh.

If it doesn't work, and at that cost, it makes a lot of sense to cancel the program. Perhaps the Alliant Techsystem BTERM will work out, but as the article says it has had problems. This isn't good news at all though, because NGFS is important, and there was a lot of hope that the ERGM would turn out to be successful. A successful ERGM would have given the 106 5" guns already on the 22 CGs and 62 DDGs a huge new capability with an existing weapon system.

The result of this news is sure to bring the NGFS debate back to the DDG-1000, which has long been a strong selling point of the DDG-1000. While the DDG-1000 is sold as a number of things it does have its Advanced Gun System with the Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) developed by BEA that has been successful to date. The LRLAP is not cheap either though, the last price tag I saw was $35000 per round. With a fire rate of 10 shots per minute, and a payload of 900 rounds, the DDG-1000 will be able to empty its entire magazine in 45 minutes with two guns, at a total cost of $31.5 million, roughly the same cost as 78 tomahawk cruiser missiles.

Clearly accurate naval gunfire is for the rich. It will be interesting to see how long it takes the Navy to equate the cancellation of ERGS to the requirement for the DDG-1000. My bet is when they make that case, they ignore the costs.