Posted on 05/20/2010 11:41:34 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Apropos of our earlier post on precision guided indirect fire and the Army’s decision to cut its buy of Excalibur precision 155mm rounds, our own Christian Lowe checks in from his embed out near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border:
I spoke with an artillery forward observer with Angel Company, 3–187, at FOB Sharana the other day who told me about the few times he’s employed the Excalibur precision 155 round.
He said despite the infrequent use and the Army’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for the weapon, it sure makes a heck of an impression on the Taliban – so much so that they’ve derived a nickname for the round.
According to the artillery FO, radio traffic pulled from Taliban radio chatter indicates they call the Excalibur round “The Finger of Death.” When the FO told me this, he extended his index finger and pointed in a long arc right into the palm of his hand – showing that when they fire one of these, it hits exactly where they aimed it and kills everyone there.
We’re a little too far from the flagpole out here to slice and dice the internal debates in DC over this round. But suffice it to say the bad guys around here would prefer that the “Finger of Death” not point at them.
(Excerpt) Read more at defensetech.org ...
Yea Baby
Obviously, it’s a weapons system that works far too effectively and give us an “unfair” advantage against our opponents, so it must be slashed.
Hmmm, I want teh shoulder fired version.
Call it a “middle finger of death” and order up a whole bunch.
I agree.
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/big-guns.htm
"The Excaliber is fantastically precise – more accurate than any sniper – and can make first round hits on the targets 5, 10, 20 miles away. Recently, we (the U.S.) had a software glitch with the Excaliber rounds which would have made them inaccurate within certain calendar dates. There are still some glitches but there is no doubt that we could use a lot more of Excaliber." He also mentions on very dark nights they fire IR (infrared) illumination rounds.
What is interesting that it has a CEP of 10 meters due to GPS plug in. Awesome photos.
Fun gun ping.
And make no mistake, those CNN reports are a deliberate counter by the enemy to our most effective tactics and weapons.
GET SOME!
Kind brings a tear to your eye.
They need high explosive shells with pig remains jacketed around the explosive.
This is why Barry and his water-boys will make sure its no longer available to our troops. After all we wouldn’t want to traumatize the Taliban.
“
Taliban Fear 155mm Excalibur “Finger of Death”
“
Units that use the Excalibur should have a shoulder patch that says
something like: “When we reach out, we DO touch someone!”.
I saw the Excalibur on the FutureWeapons show on Discovery a few years ago.
VERY COOL.
IMHO, the other really cool weapon is that Javelin system that
can be used by a single soldier. Fire, take the control system module,
move on to the next missle.
IIRC, they mentioned how a small group of US soldiers had neutralized
a column of Iraqi military trucks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.