Excalibur upgrade complete
Raytheon and the US Army have completed the upgrade of Excalibur precision-guided projectile, the company announced on 9 October.
The Excalibur Shaped Trajectory (EST) variant will enable soldiers to eliminate targets in hard-to-reach locations by selecting the projectile’s terminal or final phase attack angle. The new capability gives the ability to attack a bunker positioned on the opposite side of a mountain slope, target a multi-storey building from the side rather than the top or defeat enemy assets positioned under highway overpasses.
The EST variant was demonstrated in August 2018 at the US Army Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, and is now being deployed to US forces.
Excalibur is an extended-range, precision munition that is fully qualified in multiple systems, including the M777, M109 series, M198, the Archer and PzH2000. It has also been tested in the AS90, K9 and G6 howitzers, with plans to integrate it with other mobile artillery systems.
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