The U.S. Army is working on Strategic Long Range Cannon or SLRC that could hit targets
at a distance of more than 1,000 miles or around 1,600 km away.
Though this is currently at the concept stage, newly leaked images of the super cannon give
us an idea of how it will shape up.
The SLRC could give the US Army a deep-strike capability that the U.S. Air Force and U.S.
Navy have with their warplanes and cruise missiles.
The Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command in late February posted, on professional
networking site Linkedin, an artist’s impression of the cannon.
At present U.S Army’s largest gun are M109A7 Paladin self-propelled howitzer and the M777
towed howitzer.
Both of these are 155 mm guns and have a range of 18.6 miles or 30 km.
The Long Range Land Attack Projectile, a shell especially developed for the Zumwalt-class
of destroyers which was ultimately canceled due to high cost has a range of 85 miles or
135 km.
To give the viewer a perspective, it is to be noted that even the massive 16-inch guns
of the Iowa-class battleships had a range of only 23 miles or 37 km.
The SLRC could change the way the U.S military fights a war in the future.
In this video Defense Updates, analyzes why U.S Army’s Strategic Long Range Cannon (SLRC)
is very bad news for Russia & China?
Let’s get started.
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Though sometimes overlooked, artilleries are important and can be very useful tactically.
For example, during the US-North Korea crisis, the artillery had a major impact.
North Korea’s Koksan artillery piece has a range of about 25 miles or 40 km, using
conventional projectiles.
However, South Korea ’s capital Seoul is well within the range of the Korean People’s
Army rocket-assisted shells—which have a range of around 40 miles or 60 km, if the
guns are stationed near the border region.
Being self-propelled, 170 mm Koksan can be easily moved close to the international border
and can be used to target Seoul.
Placed into hard granite mountain faces and protected behind blast doors, these Koksans
will be hard to detect as well as very complicated to neutralize.
An artillery barrage from North Korea would have resulted in catastrophic loss of life
and one of the reasons why the U.S didn’t attack North Korea.
Strategic Long Range Cannon would most likely have a very specific purpose.
Countries like Russia & China have been developing sophisticated layered air defense.
These systems will make sure that even American stealth jets like F 22 Raptor, F 35 Lightning
and B2 Spirit cannot operate with impunity.
For example, Russia has deployed S 400 air defense system.
S 400 Triumph is an anti-aircraft weapon system developed by Russia’s Almaz Central Design
Bureau in the 1990s as an upgrade of the S 300 family.
It can track hundreds of targets at a time, engage up to 36 targets in parallel and simultaneously
launch 72 missiles.
Russia is also working on S 500 which will be even more potent.
Also, American rivals are developing long-range land-based anti-ship missiles that can threaten
the U.S Navy’s warship from far off.
For example, China has deployed the YJ-12 anti-ship missile on several islands in the
South China Sea.
It has a maximum range of 380 km or 236 miles can reach a maximum speed of Mach 3.2
Strategic Long Range Cannon will be used to decimate these kinds of threats.
During World War II, the German-built two of the Heavy Gustafs and deployed them on
the Eastern Front for the sieges of Sevastopol, Leningrad, and Stalingrad.
The guns fired 48 shells in combat and demolished some Soviet fortifications.
It took thousands of men to deploy a Heavy Gustaf and 500 men just to fire it.
In relatively recent times, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein tried to develop a supergun
through Project Babylon.
It involved building a series of "superguns".
The design was based on research from the 1960s Project HARP led by the Canadian artillery
expert Gerald Bull.
There were most likely four different devices in the program.
The project began in 1988; it was halted in 1990 after Bull was assassinated, and parts
of the superguns were seized in transit around Europe.
The components that remained in Iraq were destroyed by the United Nations after the
1991 Persian Gulf War.
In 2017, the U.S. Army revealed they were studying the development of a Strategic Long
Range Cannon that could strike targets up to 1,150 miles away.
Then, in October 2019, artillery modernization chief Col. John Rafferty told Defense News
in an interview that the U.S Army planned to begin early tests to determine the viability
of the weapon at the Naval Support Facility in Dalhgren, Virginia.
The image depicts a huge cannon on a trailer with at least six wheels, under tow by a heavy
truck itself with at least eight wheels.
Reports indicate that each cannon would require eight soldiers to operate it and a battery
would have four guns.
A large trapezoidal mount will be used to absorb the recoil produced by such a powerful
weapon.
The SLRC would be transportable by air and sea.
A prime mover with a separate wheeled trailer attached on the opposite side of the mount
will be used to tow the gun.
So, it can be said that the gun will be not truly “mobile” but can be shifted from
one place to the other.
The super cannon will basically be a supersized version of current guns and in all probability
use a traditional explosive charge to hurl the shells.
In Oct 2018 Col. John Raffert told reporters, “I don’t want to oversimplify, (but) it’s
a bigger one of those.
We’re scaling up things that we’re already doing"
The shells in all probability will be much smaller than that of the 1,322-pound shell
of proposed Big Babylon, gun so that it can attain greater range.
The shells will most likely be GPS enabled so that they have high precision.
In 2016, former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster told Congress that US field
artillery is “outranged and outgunned” by its Russian and Chinese counterparts.
Viewers may note that keeping this view, in 2017, the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley,
officially made Long-Range Precision Fires (LRPF) the US Army's No. 1 priority.
LRPF is an umbrella program of which Strategic Long Range Cannon is a part.
According to Secretary of the Army Mark Esper, who says the fantastical weapon would “open
the door” for the other services, blasting enemy defenses before they have a chance to
open fire on U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps forces converging on the region.
Esper was quoted in Task & Purpose having said that the gun could sit in a “gun pit”
on the edge of the South China Sea.
As per him, the gun could destroy Chinese warships and military targets on islands across
the South China Sea, destroying air defense sites, radar installations, anti-ship missiles,
and even air bases.
A supergun deployed in the Philippine archipelago on the eastern edge of the South China Sea
could hit Chinese military installations in both the Spratly and Paracel Island chains,
including air bases on Subi Reef and Fiery Cross Reef.
This could severely degrade Chinese defense and enable U.S forces to mount an offensive.
The gun could be handy against Russian too.
A gun like this based in southern Germany could potentially hit Russian military assets
in western parts of Russia.