US officials have given Ukrainian forces their most precise artillery shell, the GPS-powered Excalibur, according to a budget document that for the first time discloses that the Pentagon has been supplying Kyiv with the shell, according to a report published on Thursday by Bloomberg.
$92 Million for Artillery Shell
In accordance with a budget document made public last month, the Defense Department will use $92 million in additional funding authorized by Congress for the procurement of replacement M982 Excalibur munitions that were previously transferred to Ukraine in support of the global campaign to counter the Russian forces.
The weapon's major feature, according to BAE Systems, is that the round has the same accuracy no matter how far it is from the cannon and the target, with a "Circular Error Probability" of fewer than 10 meters.
The round has four canards on the front and a base bleed aggregate and rotating stabilization wings on the back. It also has aircraft-like mobility thanks to its wings and canards.
Excalibur has a range of about 50 kilometers from a modern L52 calibre gun system. A unitary warhead makes up the Lethal mechanism, and the system can be set up to detonate with an air burst, point detonation, or delay (penetration) detonation, according to BAE Systems.
The $92 million expansion to Excalibur more than doubles the program's budget and adds nearly 900 projectiles in fiscal 2022, according to Mark Cancian, a defence analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies who is tracking US spending on Ukraine.
According to estimates based on the weapon's capabilities, it has likely been employed thus far to surgically destroy Russian command and control facilities.
Excalibur's Additional Features
The US Army also said that the weapon boosts lethality, decreases collateral damage, and offers the movement force commander greater fire support. An Enhanced Portable Inductive Artillery Fuze Setter feeds data from the target, platform location, and GPS into the projectile's mission computer.
The Excalibur projectile updates the inertial navigation system using an inbuilt, jam-resistant GPS receiver, offering precise in-flight guidance and significantly increasing accuracy to less than two meters of miss distance irrespective of range.
Additionally, the updated budget detailed that the US will give Ukraine conventional 155mm artillery rounds, MK-19 grenade launchers, "precision sniper rifles" and "spotting scopes" Javelin anti-armor and Stinger anti-air missiles, "replacement battery coolant units" for Stingers. as well as the HIMARS mobile rocket system and its Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, or GMLRS missiles.
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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
