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Bringing more guns to a gun fight: Army artillery could soon be firing from the deck of Navy ships, and that’s just the start

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Although each branch of the U.S. military has a domain and operational strategy all its own, the realities of modern warfare have seen the lines blurring between the types of tasks, and even environments, assets from each branch have found themselves assigned in recent decades. Now, as the Department of Defense looks toward a future full of a very different type of fighting than America has seen throughout the war on terror, they now plan to blur those lines even further.

While it does make sense for each branch to develop its own combat practices, those isolated lanes of development can present issues on the battlefield in a 21st century conflict. Software developed by individual contracts and fielded by single branches often can’t communicate with similar suites employed by other branches, for instance. As a result, the Defense Department has been working to find ways to integrate disparate systems in a manner that would permit leveraging data collected by any asset to be used in the battle space of the future.

The effort to marry the data feeds of different systems into actionable intelligence has already produced notable fruit, including the use of Navy F/A-18s to identify targets for land-based weapons platforms in Alaska during the recent Noble Eagle exercises. Maybe the Navy found the integration of heavy artillery into their combat suite a little too appealing to leave at that, because now they’re aiming to place U.S. Army artillery on the decks of their ships.

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Comments

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  • Firewater

    No doubt that it is doable , if you add all those systems...or develop a separate vessel class . Lotta shipyard cut and paste time( at great expense ) involved in converting any present vessels , if you could find the real estate. Using adaptable turrets , and their support systems , that could accommodate a 155 tube , a possibility. In support of amphib ops / littoral combat applications I can see the utility , but is it practical , truly?

  • Carl C

    Have you noticed that there are always geniuses in the Pentagon who want to "retire" every weapon system as obsolete to promote their careers as forward thinking geniuses and, when those turds get their way, everyone else wishes they hadn't? With today's innovative munitions, just maybe it is time to bring back the battleship instead of parking field artillery on steel decks? Just imagine what the Navy would do with today's munitions fired from the big guns on Battleships. Nah, they won't do that because some idiot geniuses with lots of stars will have to admit they were wrong and we couldn't have any of our glorious leaders admitting they were full of crap. And now those same idiot geniuses want to retire the aircraft carrier to promote their brilliant careers...at others' expense of course.

  • Ron M

    All of those systems are already present in the fleet. Just need to add the big guns, ammo lockers, elevators, gunnersmates, and hydraulic systems. Using a naval targeting system could possibly be more accurate. Or just hauling them around on the ship would provide forward deployed artillery ready at the speed of the fleet. Not a bad idea either way I think.

  • RB

    From what I can remember from my Falklands reading the British naval guns were almost too accurate for land bombardment. Two MLRS on the deck would be interesting.

  • Firewater

    Obviously , the major obstacle...is platform stabilization . So how easy is it to design and integrate into existing vessel structural limitations , a practical GPS based gyroscopic hydraulic stabilization system that you could install on an existing 155mm howizter , allowing for the same constraints listed above? A tank , and a 155mm are different animals , mounted on very different platforms , and the tank is a 105mm......but , adaptation and innovation , of existing proven platforms , and ballistic stabilization technologies, may be adaptable....but will it be practical , and efficient , and cost effective , while actually increasing viable on board firepower....? This issue , is a result of foregoing large caliber guns , in favor of missile , and rocket based weapons. Anything above 5” , has gone away, in favor of the aforementioned. However cost per use of munitions would be and always has been lower , to fire ballistic munitions , then missile , or rocket munitions. Rail guns thus far have very short barrel life expectancies....