WASHINGTON — The Army has accelerated purchasing a high-tech artillery shell that can be fired from as far away as 14 miles yet explode within 30 feet of its target to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, Army officials and analysts say.An urgent request from commanders in Iraq for more accurate artillery to reduce civilian deaths prompted the Army to speed production of the Excalibur shells, according to the Government Accountability Office. In May, the Army awarded an $85 million contract to buy Excaliburs — the most ever spent for the shells.
The need for precise weapons was underscored by Friday's airstrikes in Afghanistan by the U.S.-led coalition that President Hamid Karzai said killed at least 89 civilians. The U.S. coalition acknowledged civilian casualties and said it would investigate.
One Excalibur shell can destroy targets that would require dozens of conventional rounds. The Excalibur uses Global Positioning System signals to home in on targets, while traditional shells are aimed in a general direction.
The Excalibur shells are likened to the so-called "smart bombs" the Air Force uses to hit targets, said Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent policy research institute.
Excalibur shells costs $89,000 per round, compared with $300 for a conventional 155mm shell. Over the next decade, the Army wants to acquire 30,000 Excaliburs, said Audra Calloway, an Army spokeswoman at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey. As production increases, the cost per shell could be cut in half, she said.
"Excalibur is a very big deal," Krepinevich said. "It is long overdue."
The Pentagon started developing the Excalibur shells in 1997, and the program was marred by delays and cost overruns, the GAO says.
Soldiers fired the first Excalibur shells in Iraq in May 2007 to root out insurgents from Baqouba in volatile Diyala province. The shells, fired from more than 10 miles away, destroyed targets such as insurgents planting makeshift bombs, a rooftop machine gun position and a sniper team, said Maj. Evan Gotkin of the Arrowhead Stryker brigade.
"If there's one or two insurgents shooting at an infantry platoon from an building, I don't want to drop a bomb on it that will destroy the building and kill a lot of civilians," Gotkin said. "It's a perfect weapon for the urban fight."
Better accuracy means the shells can be fired within 50 yards of friendly troops, a critical concern when infantrymen come under sniper fire in urban areas, he said. And an Excalibur can be fired in bad weather when attack aircraft can't fly, he said.
At least seven Excalibur rounds have been fired in Afghanistan, according to the Army.
Capt. Victor Scharstein, whose 1st Cavalry Division unit fired the Excalibur at insurgents in Baqouba, vouched for the shell's accuracy. "It may take me 20, 30, 40, 50, upward of 100 rounds to destroy a target" with conventional artillery, he said. "Now I'm attacking a target with one or two rounds."
Gotkin said that last year, two snipers in a building in Baqouba shot a soldier's helmet, and the soldier survived. Minutes after calling Scharstein's battery, an Excalibur shell destroyed the roof of the building and killed the sniper team.
"It allowed us to destroy everyone inside or on top of the building and then walk in," Gotkin said, adding that there were no civilian casualties.
Excalibur's accuracy means the Army can keep smaller supplies of shells on hand, which puts fewer troops at risk on supply roads, said John Pike, a military analyst and director of Globalsecurity.org.