An M777 155 mm Howitzer fires at Yuma Proving Ground's Kofa Firing Range. (US Army )

US Army officials and industry counterparts are preparing for a so-called ‘soft catch' test and demonstration of a new Assured Position, Navigation and Timing (APNT) capability, which could play a key role in advancing the ground service's Precision Long Range Fires initiative.

Programme officials from US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) and CAES, a Northern Virginia-based company specialising in advanced radio frequency (RF) technologies, will evaluate the survivability and mission validity of the company's Precision Strike Sensor Core APNT system.

“We're actually going to integrate (the system) with a round and fire it, to validate the survivability,” during the test scheduled to take place at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, CAES director of engineering Brian Hetsko said.

If successful, programme officials at CAES plan to proceed with future live fire and captive carry demonstrations of the system at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona later in 2024, Hetsko told Janes during a 20 May interview.

A US-donated M109A6 Paladin 155 mm self-propelled howitzer firing in the Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on 18 May 2023. (Serhii Mykhalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

Ukraine was described as the most interoperable country in Europe at Defence iQ's Future Artillery 2024 conference held in Paris from 21 to 23 May.

Janes learnt, under Chatham House rules at the conference, that this is because Ukraine can use US artillery rounds, unlike European NATO members. This is made possible by the US sending the fire tables along with the artillery shells it donates to Ukraine, meaning Ukrainian gunners can enter the data into the fire control computers of the guns that use the ammunition. Other European countries however can only fire shells they have produced. The US aims to achieve similar compatibility with European NATO members.

It also emerged at Future Artillery 2024 that the European Union (EU) does not have the capability to supply Ukraine with enough 155 mm artillery shells. The European Commission announced in a press release on 15 March that European production capacity for 155 mm rounds had reached one million per year

Two Atlas Elektronik UK ARCIMS with SeaCat AUVs onboard and (insets) screenshots of SeeByte's software showing mission planning, monitoring, and post-mission analysis for the SeaCat. (SeeByte/Atlas Elektronik UK)

UK-based software house SeeByte has been contracted by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) for at least three more years of software support and development in support of the Royal Navy's (RN's) Mine Hunting Capability (MHC) programme, the company said in a press release.

Awarded by the MoD's Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) organisation in mid-May, the contract is extendable from three years up to five, and from its base award of GBP2.4 million (USD3 million) up to GBP50 million (USD63.6 million) over the full contract term. The scope of delivery will see SeeByte provide its suite of command and control (C2), mission-level autonomy, target recognition, support, and development services to the MHC delivery team.

Following approval to move forward with MHC Block 2 long-lead and transition activity, the MoD has confirmed to Janes