After wars, the Army always takes hits out of proportion to the other services. And with the Air Force seeking to cover their cuts at the expense of supporting the Army, it is good that the Army can count on its own artillery arm for battlefield fire support:
The Army is “fully committed” to the M109 Paladin Integrated Management, or PIM, program, Army Secretary John McHugh said on Thursday during a hearing of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee. ...
The Army plans to spend almost $8 billion to buy 582 of the more advanced tracked vehicles, designed to support soldiers in heavy brigades with a cannon capable of firing 155mm precision-guided projectiles, according to Pentagon budget documents. The systems, which are being built in York, Pa., and Elgin, Okla., will include a new chassis, engine, transmission, suspension, steering system, and armor, according to the contractor.
The story says that the program appears on track for funding and fielding. The Army needs this weapon system. I was certainly skeptical about the proposed ultra-light Future Combat Systems (FCS) and horrified about the weight of the proposed Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV)--both cancelled, but the M-109 PIM is a proven approach to fire support. I believe a bunch of the "new" stuff is from the Bradley chassis. And I assume that a lot of the cannon system is from late model true M-109s or from the old FCS research for the fire support version.
And since we've cut back on artillery units over the last decade because we rely on precision rather than "dumb" shells, we don't need a 1-for-1 replacement program to maintain fire support capability. That has to help a lot, budget-wise, despite an increase in per-unit costs because of lack of volume production.
It helps that this can be described as an evolutionary step from the five-decade-old M-109 rather than a radically new weapon system.
It worked for the Navy Super Hornet ...
