Assessing the Feasibility of the Strategic Long Range Cannon
Unclassified Summary
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Committee on Assessing the Feasibility of the Strategic Long Range Cannon
Board on Army Research and Development
Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences
Consensus Study Report
NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001
This activity was supported by Grant/Contract No. W911NF-18-D-0002-0001 with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and Technology (DASA(RT)) and the National Academy of Sciences. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-45480-3
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-45480-8
Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/26129
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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Assessing the Feasibility of the Strategic Long Range Cannon: Unclassified Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26129.
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COMMITTEE ON ASSESSING THE FEASIBILITY OF THE STRATEGIC LONG RANGE CANNON
LTG JOSEPH ANDERSON, Rafael Systems Global Sustainment, Co-Chair
KARI D. ANDERSON, Mobius Consulting, LLC, Co-Chair
KAUSHIK BHATTACHARYA,1 California Institute of Technology
RODNEY D.W. BOWERSOX, Texas A&M University
IAIN BOYD, University of Colorado Boulder
ALISON BROWN (NAE), NAVSYS Corporation
GEORGE (RUSTY) T. GRAY III (NAE), Los Alamos National Laboratory
JAMES E. HUBBARD, JR. (NAE), Texas A&M University
GREG H. PARLIER, GH Parlier Consulting, Madison, Alabama
SUHITHI M. PEIRIS, Air Force Research Laboratory
KELLY STEPHANI, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Staff
WILLIAM “BRUNO” MILLONIG, Director, Board on Army Research and Development, and Scholar
SARAH JUCKETT, Program Officer, Study Director
NIA JOHNSON, Program Officer (as of November 2020)
STEVEN DARBES, Program Officer
LINDA WALKER, Program Coordinator (until April 2021)
AANIKA SENN, Program Coordinator (until August 2020)
TINA LATIMER, Program Coordinator (as of April 2021)
TRAVON JAMES, Program Coordinator (as of September 2021)
CAMERON MALCOM, Research Assistant
CLEMENT MULOCK, Program Assistant
CHRIS JONES, Senior Finance Business Partner
Consultant
THOMAS PERISON
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1 Resigned from the committee in December 2021.
BOARD ON ARMY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
HON. KATHARINA McFARLAND, Retired Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics & Technology), Chair
MICHAEL BEAR, Booz Allen Hamilton, Vice Chair
LTG JOSEPH ANDERSON, Rafael Systems Global Sustainment
DAVID AUCSMITH, University of Washington
JAMES BAGIAN (NAE/NAM), University of Michigan
JOAN BIENVENUE, University of Tennessee
LYNN A. DUGLE, Independent Consultant
JOHN FARR, United States Military Academy at West Point
GEORGE T. GRAY III (NAE), Los Alamos National Laboratory
MG WILLIAM HIX, New Horizon Partners, LLC
GREGORY JOHNSON, Lockheed Martin
JOHN KOSZEWNICK, Achates Power, Inc.
DUNCAN McGILL, Independent Consultant
CHRISTINA MURATA, Deloitte
ADI PADHA, Deloitte
JOHNNY SAWYER, The Sawyer Group, LLC
ALBERT A. SCIARRETTA, CNS Technologies, Inc.
KELLY STEPHANI, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
GEOFFREY D. THOME, SAIC
JAMES THOMSEN, Seaborne Defense, LLC
JOSEP TORRELLAS, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
DEBRA WADA, Military Child Education Coalition
BRIAN HOLMES, Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ex officio)
Staff
WILLIAM “BRUNO” MILLONIG, Director and Scholar
LIDA BENINSON, Senior Program Officer (until November 2021; with Board on Higher Education and Workforce)
SARAH JUCKETT, Program Officer
NIA JOHNSON, Program Officer (as of November 2020; with Intelligence Community Studies Board)
STEVEN DARBES, Program Officer
LINDA WALKER, Program Coordinator (until April 2021)
AANIKA SENN, Program Coordinator (until August 2020)
TINA LATIMER, Program Coordinator (as of April 2021)
TRAVON JAMES, Program Coordinator (as of September 2021)
CAMERON MALCOM, Research Assistant
CLEMENT MULOCK, Program Assistant
SAMUEL ZINKGRAF, Program Assistant
CHRIS JONES, Senior Finance Business Partner
Reviewers
This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published report as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Kevin Bowcutt (NAE), Boeing,
Graham Candle (NAE), University of Minnesota,
Saryu Fensin, Los Alamos National Laboratory,
MG John Ferrari, QOMPLX,
John Fisher, Energetic Technology Center,
Demoz Gebre-Egziabher, University of Minnesota,
MG William C. Hix, Next Horizon Partners, LLC,
Thomas Kurfess, Georgia Institute of Technology,
Roger McCarthy (NAE), McCarthy Engineering, and
Kaliat Ramesh, Johns Hopkins University.
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations of this report nor did they see the final draft before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Eric Ducharme (NAE), General Electric Aviation (retired). He was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the authoring committee and the National Academies.
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Contents
1.2 Overview of the Strategic Long Range Cannon Program
1.3.1 Committee Meetings and Presentations
2TODAY’S OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
2.1.1 A Summary of the MDO Concept
2.1.2 The Expanded Battlefield
2.2 Strategic Long Range Cannon Overview
2.2.1 How Long Range or Strategic Fires Will Expand the Battlefield
2.2.2 SLRC Technology Development Status
2.3 Strategic Long Range Canon Capability Development Considerations
2.3.1 Operational Employment Considerations
2.4.1 Development Costs and Cost Effectiveness
2.4.2 Cost per Effect Framework
2.4.3 DoD Hypersonics Development
2.5 Army Offices and Development Responsibilities
2.5.1 Army Futures Command Long Range Precision Fires
2.5.2 Combat Capabilities Development Command Armament Center
2.5.4 Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology
2.5.5 SLRC Program Technology Transition Plan and Status
2.6 Strategic Long Range Cannon Technology Maturation Roadmap
3EVALUATION OF KEY AND ESSENTIAL TECHNOLOGIES
3.1.1 Fundamental Challenges of Hypersonic Projectiles
3.2 Gun, Launcher, and Projectile
3.2.1 Gun Design, Material, and Manufacturing
3.3 Sensors, Quality of Service, and Communications
3.4 Weapon Systems Analysis and Enterprise Integration
3.4.3 Enterprise Integration and System-of-Systems Performance
3.6 Acquisition and Sustainment
Preface
The 2018 National Defense Strategy states that “Long-term strategic competitions with China and Russia are the principal priorities for the Department, and require both increased and sustained investment, because of the magnitude of the threats they pose … today, and the potential for those threats to increase in the future.” This focus is reinforced by the recent Interim National Security Guidance and the Secretary of Defense’s “Message to the Force,” which prioritizes “freedom of action in contested, complex operating environments.” The Army, seasoned and shaped by 20 years of counterinsurgency, is undertaking a transformation effort that will “provide the Joint Force with the range, speed, and convergence of cutting-edge technologies that will be needed to provide future decision dominance and overmatch required to win the next fight” by delivering “mobile long range fires, sustainment, protection, and forces able to maneuver within an adversary’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) layer.” The adversary’s reliance on A2/AD, attendant investment in its own long-range fires, and emerging investment in hypersonic capabilities mean fire and maneuver, in particular, will take on a new meaning in this much more contested operational environment.
The Army’s operational concept, Multi-Domain Operations, “proposes a series of solutions to solve the problem of layered standoff” rapidly and continuously integrating “all domains of warfare to … penetrate and dis-integrate enemy anti-access and area denial systems,” particularly by employing “cross-domain fires to defeat the enemy’s long-range systems and begin the neutralization of the enemy mid-range systems.” Consequently, the Army is actively pursuing long-range hypersonic weapons, medium-range missiles, and shorter-range cannons. The Strategic Long Range Cannon (SLRC), originally conceived to address threat capabilities that exceeded Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty limits, is one possible hypersonic solution for a 1,000-mile-range weapon system. It is important to note that the SLRC is currently a science and technology project with the objective of test firing a demonstrator in 2023.
This report highlights some of the challenges associated with the system on the path ahead and makes recommendations to inform the community of interest on how to improve this project.
We would like to thank the committee members for their dedicated time and steadfast professional efforts towards this study. Their intellectual curiosity and teamwork resulted in a very thorough and valuable report. We also appreciate all of the agencies and organizations that provided the committee with information and contributed
to this study. Lastly, we are grateful for all of the support given to us by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine staff in order to keep us organized and focused on our objectives and timelines and in the development of this report.
Joseph Anderson and Kari Anderson, Co-Chairs
Committee on Assessing the Feasibility of the Strategic Long Range Cannon
