Army tests new mounted gun

[unhappycamper]

Army tests new mounted gun
By Kris Osborn - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Apr 5, 2008 17:51:48 EDT

A large ball of fire burst from a 120mm barrel as the Army’s XM360 tank gun sent rounds at 1,300 meters per second through a mesh target 1 kilometer away at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. The March 14 test was part of the Army’s evaluation of the first six of the guns.

“The 120mm gun you are seeing here is the most advanced and the lightest in the world,” said Dave Smith, a design team leader with the Army’s Benét Laboratories in Watervliet, N.Y.

The 4,100-pound XM360 is about one-third lighter than the 120mm cannon on the Abrams tank, thanks to a special steel wrapped in composites, yet is designed to hit targets up to 8 kilometers away on the move and up to 12 kilometers while stationary, far more than the Abrams’ 4-kilometer range. Each gun will be expected to fire about 12,000 rounds during its lifespan.

“We wanted to have all those capabilities in a lighter package, a smaller package and a more durable package,” said Bob McAllister, the Mounted Combat System primary weapon assembly lead for General Dynamics Land Systems.

The XM360 is intended to go on the MCS, one of eight 27-ton vehicles under development for the Future Combat System. Putting such a powerful gun on a relatively light vehicle required innovation.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/04/army_xm360_040508w/



uhc comment: It's not like these things are expensive or anything. The Army has allocated $712,000,000 on this new toy -- > http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:ufher7KFXnoJ:www.js.pentagon.mil/descriptivesum/Y2008/Army/0603004A.pdf+xm360+%2B+cost%2Bcost&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us