The US Army's New Battlefield 'Big Gun' Has a Dangerous Defect

Robert Beckhusen

Security,

Lack of fire suppression is one problem with the M109A7 Paladin.

The U.S. Army in the coming years will build hundreds of new mobile howitzers, and largely, the project has been a success. Except there will be a problem if the self-propelled howitzers catch on fire.

The Paladin M109A7 PIM — the latest in America’s line of tracked artillery pieces — has an automated fire-suppression system known as an AFES. But during survivability tests, the AFES “did not protect the entire crew compartment” and that “howitzer crews are at increased fire risk” according to a report by the Pentagon’s Inspector General released in August.

Oil, lubricants and the heating system inside the Paladins are all potential fire hazards. And for obvious reasons, there is a risk of fire if the vehicles take a big enough blow. And that’s big trouble for the crews.

The Army will deploy its first PIMs in March 2017, and the howitzers feature a host of upgrades designed for the modern battlefield. But if the problem with the AFES isn’t fixed, “PIM program officials could deploy vehicles that endanger crews.”

All of that is true. Here’s another fact — the PIM is still safer than its predecessor Paladins, which have no automated fire suppression systems at all. Crews have to trust their lives to manual fire extinguishers carried on board.

However, it’s still big deal, especially considering the kind of lethal, massed and accurate artillery fire honed by the Russian army in eastern Ukraine — and which could land on American guns in a potential conflict.

The PIM is an evolutionary — not radical — upgrade of the Paladin. Outwardly, they look similar and have the same turret, except the PIM has a modified chassis based on the M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

The most important upgrade is the all-electric drive system in the turret and an overhaul of the engine to give the machine a lot more horsepower.

In short, this makes the new Paladin faster, more maneuverable and much easier to work on. Speed was a big problem in the 1992 and 2003 Iraq wars, when Paladins lagged behind the Army’s faster armored vehicles. And the PIM is better protected from mines, as the chassis rests higher off the ground.

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