Shotgun-like ammo may shield LCS

ARLINGTON, Va. – Ordnance experts will be testing heavy weapons precision ammunition that could hit enemy drones “like a shotgun blast” offering a counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) shield for Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). Last July, a Marine Corps anti-drone system downed an Iranian UAS that got within 1,000 yards of a Navy ship in the Strait of Hormuz. “There’s a lot of interest in the Navy now for a counter drone system,” said Kevin Knowles of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. “How do you shoot down these quadcopters? Trying to hit them with a round is not that easy,” he added. Northrop Grumman, which makes mission modules, is exploring a precision air-burst munition for the twin 30mm of the LCS’ surface warfare mission modules. Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren, Va., is slated to run tests on the proximity rounds this spring. “(A)ssuming that test goes well, then we’ll start putting those rounds in the magazines” of the 33mm guns on both the Freedom and Independence LCS. The 30mm gun has a dual ammunition feed, high explosive rounds already available, and the other feed with the precision air burst rounds in the other. (Source: Seapower Magazine 01/23/20) Gulf Coast Note: Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, Ala., builds the Independence variant of LCS. https://seapowermagazine.org/new-shotgun-like-ammo-could-shield-lcs-from-drones/