Northrop Grumman to develop new airburst cartridge for SBCT fleets

By Ashley Tressel / July 24, 2020 at 1:25 PM

The Army has awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to develop the next-generation airburst cartridge for the 30 mm Bushmaster Chain Gun to be used in up-gunned Stryker Brigade Combat Team fleets, the company announced this month.

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

The company this year will also start delivering the first airburst-type cartridge to the 2nd Cavalry Regiment's Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle fleet in Germany that recently received the 30 mm Bushmaster.

"The newly fielded gun system nearly doubles the range of the platform's current .50-caliber machine gun," the release says. "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."

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