This week's DefenseNews is chock-full of interesting stories, but its front page article caught me off-guard. "US Missile Too Pricey for Irregular Warfare: Army Precision Fires Review Calls for Cheaper Option." Ends up that the Precision Attack Missile (PAM), a five-foot long rocket that is intended to put a 12-pound warhead on a moving target up to 40 kilometers away, cost $466,000 per missile. Now if the Army buys a lot more, the price might go down to $304,000 per missile. Is that insane or what?
What a shock, then, that the Army has some misgivings about using such a weapon system in an irregular warfare environment. What the hell happened to tube artillery? Did the Army pack them away with horse and saber units?
Of course, the Army PEO for Integration defends the system as necessary. "The PAM, unlike other missiles in the current inventory, can use semi-active laser, GPS and IR to engage targets. The PAM also supports laser-designated, laser-anointed, and autonomous operation modes. The total NLOS-LS system is also easily deployable with a small logistics tail, giving the commander the ability to conduct precision fires from remote, hard-to-reach locations such as many forward operating bases are in today." Oh, and the Army doesn't have to rely on the Navy or Air Force if it has such high-tech precision munitions.
In comparison, the Multiple Launch Rocket System will cost you $100,000 for 80 kilometers range. An Excaliber guided artillery round will cost you $48,000 per munition. So who was smoking dope when they approved the NLOS-LS? COL Pat Lang has a guest write a good post on indirect fire and its role in COIN operations. You have to wonder, though. Maybe SecDef Gates pulled the plug on FCS too slowly. Way too much gold-plating going on in defense acquisition.
The PAM, like most RMA programs, should have died a while ago. The EFOGM can do what the PAM is intended, but cheaper. The downside is that there needs to be a soldier "in the loop" (which I don't see as a downside at all).
It is a downside for those that preach RMA "Transformation" because of their Neoconservative elitist ideology.
Posted by: Mark | 25 February 2010 at 04:32 PM
You should add the XM1156 Precision Guidance Kit to that. It's basically an add-on for 155mm rounds that is said to cost around $3000 dollars. My guess is it is related to the Navy's canceled BTERM/ANSR rounds (balistic flight path vs. the Excalibur's not balistic path).
Add a base-bleading unit to it and purchase something like the German designed Artillery Gun Module with it's 52cal long gun and you have a more-that-adequate substitute for the Fulda Combat Systems' NLOS-C.
Posted by: Mark | 25 February 2010 at 11:23 PM
There was criticism from the beginning that the multi mode seeker would drive costs up too much. It was utterly predictable.
Posted by: Sven Ortmann | 26 February 2010 at 03:45 AM
It getw worse, from Aviation week 26 feb, only 2 out of 6 missiles fired in a limited user test hit the targets, 2 failed due to known causes, 2 failed for unknown reasons, still under investigation..
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=aerospacedaily&id=news/asd/2010/02/26/07.xml&headline=Challenges%20Ahead%20For%20NLOS-LS
Posted by: Jack | 27 February 2010 at 03:13 AM