U.S. defense company NG announced on 9 July that it has been awarded a contract to develop the next generation airburst cartridge for the 30mm XM813 Bushmaster Chain Gun.

“Northrop Grumman is leading the way in developing new ammunition types that provide existing gun systems with increased capabilities to defeat difficult targets ranging from threat drones to targets in defilade positions,” said Dan Olson, vice president, armament systems, Northrop Grumman. “Our air bursting technology is proven and the addition of this new round will provide the Army with an even more capable gun system for our soldiers.”

The 30mm x 173mm airburst cartridge will feature a contact set fuze design with three operational fuze modes: Programmable Airburst, Point Detonation and Point Detonation with Delay. The initial contract will fund the completion of the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase and final qualification by the Army.

Northrop Grumman will also begin deliveries this year of the first airburst type cartridge to support the U.S. Army’s Germany-based, 2nd Cavalry Regiment’s Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle (ICV) fleet that were recently ‘up-gunned’ with the company’s 30mm Bushmaster® Chain Gun®. The new airburst cartridge in development also will support additional U.S. Army platforms to include, but not limited to, the future Stryker Brigade Combat Teams.

The newly fielded gun system nearly doubles the range of the platform’s current .50-caliber machine gun. The addition of an airburst cartridge provides a complete family of ammunition that arms the crew to meet the challenges posed by peer and near-peer adversarial threat systems.

The new improved version of Stryker infantry carrier vehicle with a 30mm turret was created to fill a capability gap in the European theater that puts Soldiers at unacceptable risk. This variant increases lethality and provides 2CR the additional assets needed to defend the NATO Alliance against any adversaries if called to do so.