One of the america's military-industrial complex's most important inventions comes out of the barrel of a howitzer. It's called the "Excalibur," and it's a 155-millimeter howitzer round that creator Raytheon says can target an object 30 miles away and consistently hit within two meters of that target. Excalibur is usually even more accurate than that. In a test firing last year, several Excalibur rounds fired at a distance of 30 miles landed within one meter of their targets, on average. (It achieves this extraordinary range by gliding on wings at the apex of its firing arc, while the extraordinary accuracy comes via GPS guidance.) 30 miles is from San Francisco to Palo Alto or San Jose to Millbrae.
The Army is paying about $70,000 per Paladin round. So filling up each Paladin magazine with Excaliburs works out to 39 x 975 x 70,000, which equals a $2.66 billion revenue opportunity for Raytheon. (And the opportunity could be even bigger. This is because in addition to the Paladin, Excalibur can also be fired from 155mm guns including the American M198 and M777 howitzers, Germany's Panzerhaubitze 2000, the U.K.'s AS-90, and Sweden's Archer Artillery System.
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The Army is paying about $70,000 per Paladin round. So filling up each Paladin magazine with Excaliburs works out to 39 x 975 x 70,000, which equals a $2.66 billion revenue opportunity for Raytheon. (And the opportunity could be even bigger. This is because in addition to the Paladin, Excalibur can also be fired from 155mm guns including the American M198 and M777 howitzers, Germany's Panzerhaubitze 2000, the U.K.'s AS-90, and Sweden's Archer Artillery System.
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