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Lightweight howitzer proves a hit with troops

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — A “triple seven” in Las Vegas usually means you’ve hit the mother lode.

In the Iraqi desert, a world away from the bright lights of Sin City, triple seven has a whole new meaning for Sierra Battery, 5th Battalion, 10th Marines.

The M777A2 Lightweight 155mm Howitzer pinpoints targets with an accuracy that helps Marines do a little less rolling of the dice when they fire.

The triple seven can fire the first-of-its-kind Raytheon XM982 Excalibur Global Positioning System-guided projectile, which gives the howitzer a range of up to 40 kilometers with an accuracy on target within 10 meters. It also has a digital fire-control system, making it more accurate even with standard projectiles.

“This is the lightest and most compact artillery weapon of its kind, designed to improve mobility, accuracy and sustainability,” Gunnery Sgt. Michael Hamby, Sierra Battery gunnery sergeant, wrote in an e-mail. “Currently, there is no equal to the M777A2 on the battlefield. Our young Marines have adjusted to the weapon system very easily and continue to contribute future tactics, techniques and procedures with the new capabilities this weapon system offers to both ground maneuver forces and combined-arms operations.”

The Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based battery, attached to Regimental Combat Team 6 since it deployed to Camp Fallujah earlier this fall, is among the first to use the howitzer in combat. Twentynine Palms, Calif.-based 3rd Battalion, 11th Marines, was the first artillery unit to employ the M777A2 in combat.

Hamby said the unit’s primary focus is counterbattery missions.

“We have fired illumination in support of Iraqi police, as well as a calibration shoot, to improve our accuracy of fires and an Excalibur shoot in order to both train with the new projectile and digital fire control, as well as show the amazing accuracy of this new precision-guided munition,” he wrote.

The weapon weighs about 6,000 pounds less than its predecessor, the 16,000-pound M198 howitzer, making it easier to move around the battlefield.

But Marines worried that the lighter weight would cause the howitzer to “pick up large amounts of displacement when shot with high charges,” Cpl. Adam Hill, a section chief with Sierra Battery, wrote in an e-mail.

Those worries proved unfounded.

“Since the M777A2 has been in use in Iraq, it has greatly exceeded the Marines’ expectations,” Hill said.

At least two guns are manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Capt. Kevin Lollmann, the battery commanding officer, wrote in an e-mail.

But with fewer insurgent attacks in the area, fire missions aren’t as frequent these days, Hamby said.