Rheinmetall and Northrop Grumman have announced their cooperation in the field of precision-guided enhanced range artillery ammunition. 

Rheinmetall’s South African subsidiary Rheinmetall Denel Munition and Northrop Grumman signed a ten-year strategic partnership agreement to this effect in February 2021. During this period, the two companies intend to cooperate to offer forward-looking ammunition technology to the international market, including the United States, to support future artillery operations.

The collaboration will focus, above all, on achieving an improved range of 155 mm artillery round with integrated M1156 precision guidance kit (PGK), as well as on developing a new 155 mm projectile with an improved integrated propulsion system.

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The M1156 PGK precision kit, in service in the armed forces of several countries, is inexpensive and readily available to enhance the accuracy of existing types of artillery ammunition. In combination with Rheinmetall’s V-LAP projectile which, according to the company, currentlyachieves the largest range of any conventional artillery projectile, the M1156 PGK results in a rapidly available solution, proven in many combat operations, for long-range precision-guided munitions. 

The longest range ever attained by a conventional artillery projectile today is 76 km, achieved in 2019 in the Alkantpan test range series in South Africa, with a non-Nato Joint Ballistics Memorandum of Understanding (JBMOU) – conforming 52-caliber gun and RDM 155mm projectile.

Rheinmetall and Northrop Grumman have conducted testing on V-LAP and PGK projectile variants in South Africa in early 2021 and intend to demonstrate it later to the US Army in Yuma, Arizona.

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