The war waging over in Ukraine has made several things painfully obvious for the parties involved. On the one hand, the Russians found out the hard way that large tanks and tank columns are easy pickings for drones, and waging war in this manner is no longer an option in the modern world. On the other, the Ukrainians learned that artillery, ancient as it may seem, is still highly effective.
As a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war, changes will probably follow in all worth-mentioning militaries in this world. Hardware will be replaced, roles reassigned, new procedures developed. America will do that too - actually, its military branches have been going through modernization processes for a while now, even from before the start of the war, and will continue.
The U.S. is in the process of completely changing many of its weapons and weapons platforms, while others will simply be improved with the goal of making them much better and far-reaching than before.
One such effort involves something called ramjet-powered artillery rounds. That would be an airbreathing rocket engine fitted at the bottom of a round with the goal of increasing its range.
For a while now (since 2019), a Norwegian/Finnish company called Nordic Ammunition Company (Nammo) has been working to integrate ramjets into artillery rounds. For this project, it partnered with Boeing, and the two just announced the successful conclusion of a series of ground-fire tests of such a system.
Called Ramjet 155 Extended Range Artillery Projectile, the weapon was put through its paces earlier in the year in Norway, with the goal of validating gun-launched survivability and performance.
The projectile’s engine draws in air, and that gets compressed solely by the forward motion of the projectile at supersonic speeds. Although no specific details were provided about these particular tests, we know such technologies can reach Mach 3 (2,300 mph/3,700 kph), but could easily operate at double that.
Nammo says these engines can be fitted on artillery shells as small as 155 mm, but also on larger missiles. With them on, they could easily hit targets 40 km away (25 miles), which is almost double the current range of the standard 155 mm used by the U.S.
The technology is not mature enough yet to be deployed, but Boeing and Nammo say testing will continue over the coming months. It’s unclear yet when a finished product will be presented.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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