U.S. Navy Wants Smart Guided Cannon Rounds to Fend Off Iran's Boat Swarms
The U.S. Navy is working with defense contractor Raytheon to bring precision guidance to fast-firing light cannons. The MAD-FIRES project could soon help ships fend of waves of smaller, heavily armed attack boats.
The U.S. Navy does a lot of work in the so-called littoral zone. The zone, generally described as the shallow coastal waters near land, is as close as ships like destroyers can get to land, but it can also get hairy. Potential enemies can invest in fast, cheap, short-ranged patrol boats, arm them with rockets and machine guns, and use them in swarm attacks against much larger ships.
That's precisely what Iran did during the 1980s, buying Swedish Boghammer speedboats and mounting infantry weapons on them. Iran is still doing it, as seen earlier this month when the guided missile destroyer USS Mahan was forced to fire warning shots at patrol boats in the Straits of Hormuz. The small boats broke off their attack run, but some day a Navy ship might come under real attack.
That's just one potential swarming threat. There's also the traditional threat from manned aircraft and guided missiles, and now an emerging threat from swarming drones.
Theoretically, most Navy ships are amply armed to deal with the swarm threat. Almost every ship has at least one Phalanx close-in weapon system, a 20-millimeter six-barreled M61 Vulcan cannon (the same gun that arms the F-22 Raptor) that fires up to 6,000 rounds a minute. A potent weapon like that can saw a speedboat in half in the blink of an eye, to say nothing of a small drone. Other ships, such as the Littoral Combat Ship, are armed with 30-millimeter guns. The problem is that one or two guns could become overwhelmed by dozens if not scores of enemies all attacking at once.
The Multi Azimuth Defense Fast Intercept Round Engagement System-or MAD-FIRES-could be the solution. The goal of MAD-FIRES is to create smart cannon rounds that can be guided to individual targets. According to Military & Aerospace Electronics, the rounds will have the capability to alter their flight paths to hit maneuvering targets, and re-engage targets that are still standing.
Taking a so-called "dumb" weapon system and making it "smart" is one way to increase the efficiency of existing weapons. In 2002, BAE Systems created the Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System by taking existing unguided 70mm Hydra rockets and placing fins and a laser seeker on them. As a result, a seven-barrel rocket launcher mounted on a helicopters can now destroy seven targets instead of just one.
MAD-FIRES will try to do the same thing on a much smaller scale. A typical 20-millimeter round weights about 4 ounces and is about five inches long. The engineering challenge will be to fit steering fins and a guidance system into such a tiny package while still making the round capable of lethal effect. The projectile is very fast coming out of the gun, but course corrections will lower projectile velocity, shortening the round's effective range.
Still, in this age of tiny, shockproof microchips, the idea of a putting a guidance system on what amounts to a big bullet isn't crazy. MAD-FIRES has apparently been in development for some time now, as developer Raytheon has been awarded a $8 million dollar contract modification to build and test prototype smart rounds. The tests should be completed by March 2018.
Read more at Military & Aerospace Electronics.
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