General Atomics has effectively and cheaply transformed traditional artillery shells into guided missiles, vastly expanding the range and utility of modern cannons.
When one thinks of “long-range precision strikes,” their mind usually shoots to rockets, missiles, and drones. What General Atomics—via its Electromagnetic Systems arm, GA-EMS—is doing with the Long-Range Maneuvering Projectile (LRMP) is to launch conventional 155mm tube artillery into that same place.
In essence, General Atomics wants to take a towed howitzer and convert it into a precision standoff weapon that can threaten deep behind enemy lines. It’s a serious move based on hard lessons learned from watching the brutal Ukraine War, which is forcing wild innovation upon the defense sector.
Last month, GA-EMS fired several LRMP rounds from an M777 howitzer using M231 powder charges in a test at the Yuma Proving Ground. This is significant because the M777 is widely fielded by the US military and the armed forces of America’s allies. Thus, the leap from experiments to a real battlefield deployment is much shorter than developing a new technology.
How to Turn an Artillery Shell Into a Missile
The test involved launching with M231 charges, a standard artillery propellant to push the projectile out of the barrel. There was no exotic rocket assist—which is good, because it means General Atomics can leverage existing supply chains.
Because the projectile is launched through a rifled barrel, it will spin. Before it can deploy its control surfaces or glide, the projectile must shed its outer shell that creates the spin (known as the sabot). This is to reduce the spin to a rate compatible with control. General Atomics validated that separation and de-spin behavior.
After launch, the projectile deploys its control surfaces. Rather than being just a naked ballistic shell, though, the projectile transforms into a glide weapon, allowing it to maneuver toward its intended target. The test, too, validated that the wings deployed and the descent to target was, indeed, controlled.
So far, so good.
According to GA-EMS, the flight behavior of the projectile “matched predictive models,” meaning that their simulations correctly anticipated the real-world behavior of this new kind of round.
Missiles and cruise munitions are expensive and limited in number. If a military can take a standard artillery tube and fire a “smart” guiding shell out to 62+ miles, it can vastly expand the magazine depth of its fires and reduce reliance on scarce missile assets.
In future wars, especially against near-peer adversaries, things like GPS jamming, contested airspace, anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) environments will all make missile use riskier. A glide-capable artillery shell that can maneuver and correct in flight is less predictable and harder to counter. GA-EMS explicitly pitches this as a way to operate in GPS-degraded or denied settings.
How GA-EMS’ Smart Artillery Could Change Modern Wars
Whereas traditional artillery is confined to line-of-sight plus ballistic arc ranges, the LRMP is designed to push that envelope to more than 62 miles. Ground forces, therefore, can strike logistics nodes, air defense sites, command hubs, and vulnerabilities deep behind the frontlines—without relying solely on long-range missiles or air assets.
Because LRMP is being designed to fit into existing 155mm systems, friendly forces or allies who already use that caliber get a pathway to quantum leap their fire support without new gun systems. GA-EMS has apparently gotten US Navy contracts to mature LRMP for common round use.
The August test shows that someone in the defense establishment is paying close attention to what’s happening in the Ukraine and understands the need to rapidly innovate—all while accounting for the obvious weaknesses of the US defense industrial base. If GA-EMS and the US military can keep validating long-range performance, reliability, cost efficiency, and integration with US Army and Navy systems, the LRMP—or its successors—could be a force multiplier in any future great power conflict.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert is a senior national security editor at The National Interest. Recently, Weichert became the host of The National Security Hour on America Outloud News and iHeartRadio, where he discusses national security policy every Wednesday at 8pm Eastern. He is also a contributor at Popular Mechanics and has consulted regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including The Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, The Asia Times, and others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
