120mm GPS Shell Finally Arrives

July 26, 2012: After over a decade of screwing around and dithering the U.S. Army finally got guided (APMI) 120mm mortar shells into combat. A year ago some APMI shells were fired in Afghanistan and it was discovered that some more tweaking was needed. Last April a regular (set up on the ground) 120mm mortar in Afghanistan fired some APMI rounds successfully. Recently a Stryker Brigade recently began using the APMI guided rounds from 120mm mortars mounted in Stryker wheeled armored vehicles. So far this year the APMI rounds worked as advertised in combat.
Development and production delays kept this from happening for years. But some pressure from the top (in response to lots of pressure from the bottom) made it eventually happen. It turned out that the new shell performed better than its specifications (the shell falls within a 10 meter/31 foot radius at least half the time). That was good news because Afghanistan is a place where 120mm mortars are very useful and a GPS guided 120mm mortar shell was seen as very helpful for avoiding civilian casualties and reducing the amount of ammo you have to truck in.


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