Doug Bush, chief of the procurement service of the United States Army, announced that a decision was made to restrict the creation of a self-propelled artillery unit (SAU), which is being developed as part of the Extended Range Artillery Artillery (ERCA) project.
portal Defense News reported that work on prototypes of new self-propelled guns will be completed in the autumn of 2023. However, the study of the gun revealed excessive wear of the barrel due to the low number of shots produced.
Of the 24 new Army systems expected to be in soldiers’ hands by the end of 2023, only the extended-range artillery program failed to meet that goal. The ERCA system uses a service-developed .58-caliber gun barrel mounted on a Paladin Integrated Management howitzer chassis manufactured by BAE Systems.