Special access: The game-changing cannon giving the Army’s new Ajax its tactical punch

Special access: The game-changing cannon giving the Army’s new Ajax its tactical punch

it’s called a case telescoped or CT Cannon the weapon that will give the Army’s new Ajax armored vehicle it’s tactical punch and this is the factory at bourge in central France where it’s been built here they’ve produced hundreds of these 40 mm cannons both for Ajax and for the French military which has fitted the ct40 to its Jaguar reconnaissance vehicle so what makes this gun so special well first is the design on the ct40 the mechanism on the right that feeds ammunition into the cannon is static it doesn’t move regardless of the elevation of the barrel the manufacturers say that means it’s more stable better at firing on the move and far more reliable than a conventional weapon the cannon also compact taking up far less space than previous medium caliber guns and it only recoils by 2 in 50 millim Colin Stevenson was one of the lead Engineers on the ct40 project I’ve worked on this product for um for 25 years actually I was Royal or Nottingham uh and and what I’ve seen is um you know the military uh ex-military who’ve seen this weapon fire uh certainly on a Warrior when you compare it with the the 30 mm rarden um it is um it is pretty unbelievable the fire power that you can get from such a small volume and this is where that Firepower comes from the Cannon’s unique 40 mm telescoped ammunition unlike traditional rounds where the projectile or bullet sits on top of the cartridge the projectile in this sits inside it encased in the propellant powder it means the ammunition is dramatically reduced or telescoped down in size to something that looks like this a relatively small tube these take up less room inside the vehicle and are far easier for the crew to handle while also being four times more powerful than the 30 mm ammunition used on the warrior I’ve recently talked to a couple of Seven Soldiers couple ofes they couldn’t be happy with it the feedback fromes was as soon as this is out and deployed on NATO exercises everyone’s going to want it it’s something that is a game changer it’s the next step for Battlefield engagement at medium caliber the ct40 has a linkless carousel magazine which can be shaped to fit into any turret and it can be loaded with a variety of different ammunition the crew simply slide open this drawer and insert the type of rounds they need selecting from a menu of different options so starting with these two blue ammunition these are the training ammunition one of which has got a reduced range which enables smaller training areas to be used the two yellow Munitions are high explosive one of which has got a mechanical impacting fuse and the second is an airburst munition this means it has a Time programmable fuse which enables it the munition to be exploded over a Target such as entrenched troops there are two kinetic energy Munitions the first is a steel slug which is designed for defeating hard targets such as bunkers the second is a tungston dart this is a subcaliber munition so it’s smaller than the diameter of the barrel and this is used for defeating armor targets such as ifv so what does that multi-target capability mean in practice for the crew of an armed vehicle going into battle well for instance if they need to quickly engage an enemy vehicle they can select an armor piercing round from the Cannons magazine once they’ve dealt with that they might need to Target a group of enemy firing from a building so the AHS the automatic handling system will find and deliver a point detonating round into the weapon with those enemy neutralized the crew might then find themselves Under Fire from an enemy attack helicopter or light aircraft but the cannon can deal with those two elevate its Barrel up to 85° and switching into an air defense mode Ukraine has also shown that having a weapon that can Elevate this high is also extremely useful against the growing threat of drones this cannon will be able to carry this dedicated air defense round it contains hundreds of tungsten pellets which it fires at Mac 3 rather like a shotgun literally blasting drones out of the sky I think the unique features of the ct40 weapon do lend themselves to evolve in in as the as the battlefield evolves so if we take something like high elevation you know high elevation was originally intended to be used in urban conflicts you know now with the Drone threat that high elevation gives us that capability in that in in against that Target set as well the ct40 can fire up to 200 rounds a minute compared to 90 for the raden autoc cannon fitted to the warrior the gun’s armor piercing rounds can penetrate 14 C M of armor at up to 1500 M and even on targets 3 kilm away it can go through 10 cm of armored steel the Cannon’s been produced here in France by CTA International a joint venture between the British firm BAE Systems and the French company nexter the ammunition is made in both the UK and France giving each country control of its own Supply the British have ordered in excess of 500 units of this Canon plus the spare some spare etc for the for their programs and we are supporting them alongside these programs the the French DGA has ordered well is in in progress to order 300 units of the Jaguar vehicle on which we embedded and same on the French navy the French navy has started ordering uh the rapid fire system from candas and Tes in which we are providing the 40 mm system for the anti and we are growing up in the sector not only in the land domain but as well in the naval and anti-air domain here in France these Engineers continue to develop test and refine the ct40 while the Ajax program has suffered much publicized problems all six variants of the vehicle are now starting to roll off the production line ready to enter service this year the ct40 is the mod’s first newly qualified Cannon and ammunition System since the 1960s a leap in technology and Firepower that promises to make the BR Bri Army more lethal against more types of Target than ever before Simon Newton forces news bour thanks 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The British Army is set to enhance its military capabilities with the addition of 589 Ajax armoured vehicles by the end of the decade.

At the core of this upgrade is the innovative 40-millimetre case-telescoped (CT) cannon.

Forces News reporter Simon Newton was given an exclusive look inside the French factory where this advanced weaponry is being produced.

More: https://www.forces.net/technology/british-army-upgrade-arsenal-ct40-cannon-capable-blasting-drones-and-obliterating

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