What I gathered from the news blurb is that field tests are falling short of goals. This is a fairly common occurance. Lab bench tests & computer simulations just dont give you the complete workup for something new. I expect the cave man who made the first spear looked pretty stupid to his comrades when it missed on the first throw. So, nothing has changed in 500,000 years.

I have to say from reading SP for past couple of years that they just dont like guide artilary in genral.

Didnt really want to comment on the article, a lot of the stuff not quite correct within it. Regarding Excalibur, i doesnt work every time, hence my excitement when it does. I cant tell you what the problems are, but that is the whole reason for developmental testing. No-one puts equipment through as extreme development testing as the US, they cant afford to. But nearly every test I have been involved in is basically an attempt to break whatever we are testing. You find out what happend, why it happened, fix it and try again. Eventually when the system is robust and reliable it gets fielded. Then the 13 Bravos and 0811's get on the case and we find out it can be broken in ways we had never even imagined!!!!!

Ah, but it's people like you, AE, whose commenting we really need on here, to allow the rest of us to separate the wheat from the chaff. For those of us not involved in any of the industry, our only other sources are books, magazines, and other online forums where everybody who isn't in the business continues to argue the validity and credibility of those sources when those sources are in disagreement with their personal beliefs. And I for one greatly appreciate your input. And myself, coming from 14 years of mechanical & electronics repair experience in the Army & Natl Guard, also know all about the end users (grunts) figuring out ways to break stuff we were never taught how to just as easily fix.

Thanks DT, appreciate the vote of confidence, thing is though, I am really limited in what I can confirm or deny regarding my field of expertise. My line manager and business unit director are aware of my participation on SP and monitor occasionally what I say. The really hard thing is finding out what is in the public domain and what isnt!!!!!! Marketing do there own thing with no regard to opsec or anything else regarding operational capabilites,or even reality.....and they are never held accountable for unauthorised divulgence of capabilities. I worked the BAE stand at quantico two years ago during the Modern Day Marine Show, even though the feed back from attendees had my brief in the top 3 I still got "Counselled" from BAE corprate for not staying "On message". I enjoyed explaining the disaters and f*ckups we have had during development and explaining how we solved them and how they wont happen during operational usage. I thought I was building confidence within the user comunity that what they were receiving was good to go. Apparently corporate had a different philosophy, zero "negative aspect" whatsoever, it might hurt sales!!!!!!was the directive I recieved, and guess what, dindt go the the Quantico shoe last year, or the AUSA show in washington. feel a little p!ssed about hte whole thing, but hey thats life ;) Regarding making things soldier proof, below is a description of being "Squaddy Proof", Squaddy being Brit terminology for soldier, it is hilarious and true, comes from a Brit Army unnofficial website. Think of the most indestructible thing in the known universe. Right? Well, a squaddy can break it. Think of the same thing, but put it through a 20 year 2 billion pound development. Got that thought in your head? Well, the same squaddy can still break it. Squaddy proofedness is thus the holy grail of defence contractors, and any claim to have achieved this state of nirvana is construed as a challenge. No-one has ever succeeded in this challenge. In the great annals of British military history, the one device to have almost achieved the Seventh State of Squaddy Survivability was the SLR rifle, but even this near perfection could still be broken by a strong-willed tom. The rubber eye piece for one of the old Starlight scopes was thought to be squaddie proof, it's rubber nothing to go wrong...so bored squaddies would eat it. So close but no cigar. According to un-named Government sources, the only item ever to have been given to a squaddy and returned undamaged (i.e. the only suaddy-proof item EVER) was the ball bearing! Any rumours that BFG 9000 may once have melted a 3/4" ball bearing with some jump leads & a 255kVA Generator are grossly over exagerated. It simply sparked and shed a few grammes, did it? If, and only if, a piece of equipment reaches the 7th SSS, then, with true inevitability, it will get lost.

I understand you there, AE. Being an electronics mech (Dragon, TOW, ITV, Bradley, and now following the IFTE path- Kiowa, Avenger, MLRS, Paladin components all rolled into one MOS), I know all about holding one's tongue if info isn't yet in the public domain. Personally, that's one of the suck-alls, knowing so much more about stuff but not being able to correct all the naysayers who don't know otherwise or have incorrect ideas about something (ages ago when I was part of a recruiting team, I had some connections hook me up with a TOW ground mount, in attempts to lure in the crowd, and found myself biting my tongue time and again trying to remember just what exactly I could and couldn't tell them about it. (but the little kids sure loved it!)

Dead right that the fat lady doesn't sing until the gun bunnies have their boots on it. Re the post, theoretically GPS will give the same accuracy of fix to everyone. The problem then is computing and applying course corrections. I'd guess that GMLRS is more affected by low level wind at the target than a shell or a bomb. That empty tube with all the weight up front.

->"I'd guess that GMLRS is more affected by low level wind at the target than a shell or a bomb. That empty tube with all the weight up front. " Ah, but see, the thing is, the G-MLRS actually has its control canards right up there near the tip of its nose, where they can effect the most ideal control, regardless of how "empty" the tail end is where the rocket motor was: remember, most AAMs end up the same way after flying several dozen km: the missile motor is exhausted, and the control surfaces have to have sufficient flight software programmed in to adjust for shifts in CoG yet still not over-steer during intercept. Compare the AMRAAM to the G-MLRS for a moment: the AMRAAM and other medium/long range AAMs either use the centrally-mounted wings or the tail fins for control. But since G-MLRS utilizes canards, I would think it should (theoretically, at least as I see it) be able to more easily adjust its course, regardless of how the CoG shifted (just like cars and trucks are more easily controlled with the steering located in the front wheels). But that's just my opinion.

As for being susceptible to winds, I figure that if a munition like SDB with its albatros-of-a-wingspan can still hit close enough to where they intended, I wouldn't think an MLRS rocket with very small fins generating far less drag would have any more difficulty. (And since they are guided now, we might as well fess up and finally call them missiles.)

I take your point about forward control, but how much effect does a crosswind have on wingspan? Is it not vertical cross sectional area that counts? Obviously GMLRS is greater than a shell but SDB? Of course the other factor is how fast it is moving, on one hand higher speed reduces exposure time, but it also allows less for course corrections to take effect, I'd guess this is in part a function of the size of control surfaces to make course corrections.