BAE Systems Delivers First Piece of Production Hardware for U.S. Navy’s Advanced Gun System

ARLINGTON, Vir­ginia — BAE Sys­tems, along with part­ner Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Arma­ment and Tech­ni­cal Prod­ucts, deliv­ered to the U.S. Navy the first auto­mat­ed mag­a­zine for the 155-mm Advanced Gun Sys­tem (AGS) being devel­oped for the DDG 1000 (Zumwalt) Destroy­er Pro­gram.

Advanced Gun Sys­tem (AGS) mag­a­zine The largest ful­ly-auto­mat­ed mag­a­zine in the world is the first piece of pro­duc­tion hard­ware to be deliv­ered under the AGS pro­gram Source: BAE Systems

The mag­a­zine is the first major pro­duc­tion com­po­nent to be deliv­ered under the AGS pro­gram. It is one of a total of four mag­a­zines that will be built under a Navy con­tract to pro­duce four AGS weapon sys­tems for the Navy’s first two Zumwalt class destroyers. 

AGS is a long-range pre­ci­sion gun sys­tem designed to meet Navy sur­face fire sup­port require­ments. The 155-mm AGS mag­a­zine gives the AGS a ful­ly auto­mat­ed ammu­ni­tion han­dling sys­tem that elim­i­nates the need for Sailors to han­dle the ammu­ni­tion — a first for U.S. Navy large cal­iber gun sys­tems. The mag­a­zine acts like an auto­mat­ed logis­tics cen­ter below deck by orga­niz­ing and pro­cess­ing up to 38 pal­lets that each weigh 6,000-pounds and hold eight 230-pound, pre­ci­sion-guid­ed Long-Range Land Attack Pro­jec­tiles (LRLAP) and eight pro­pelling charges. These LRLAPs can be fed into the AGS at rates of up to 10 rounds per minute to pro­vide unmatched, sus­tained long-range pre­ci­sion fire sup­port to Navy and Marine expe­di­tionary forces. 

“The suc­cess­ful fac­to­ry test­ing and deliv­ery of this first major pro­duc­tion com­po­nent for AGS, cou­pled with our ongo­ing suc­cess­es with the 155-mm LRLAP pro­gram, demon­strates that this high­ly advanced sys­tem is a real, proven option for meet­ing unmet naval sur­face fire sup­port require­ments,” said Jim Schop­pen­horst, vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er of Arma­ment Sys­tems for BAE Sys­tems. “The deliv­ery of this mag­a­zine is anoth­er exam­ple of BAE Sys­tems’ com­mit­ment to pro­vid­ing our Navy cus­tomers with the fire sup­port capa­bil­i­ty that best meets the needs of our Sailors and Marines.” 

This first 155-mm AGS mag­a­zine com­plet­ed Fac­to­ry Accep­tance Tests in Cor­do­va, Alaba­ma, in March, demon­strat­ing that all oper­a­tions of the mag­a­zine func­tioned as designed. It was shipped from Cor­do­va last month and arrived in Bath, Maine, May 10. It will be installed on the USS Zumwalt — the lead DDG 1000 ship — and lat­er inte­grat­ed with the first pro­duc­tion AGS gun mount, which is cur­rent­ly under­go­ing test­ing in Min­neapo­lis, Minnesota. 

The largest ful­ly auto­mat­ed mag­a­zine in the world, each AGS mag­a­zine is approx­i­mate­ly 45 feet long, 30 feet wide, two sto­ries tall and weighs 160 met­ric tons. 

The advanced automa­tion and mas­sive capac­i­ty from these mag­a­zines give DDG 1000, with two AGSs each, the abil­i­ty to fire LRLAP at ranges of more than 60 nau­ti­cal miles. This rep­re­sents the longest guid­ed flight range for any large cal­iber gun sys­tem in the world. 

The AGS can deliv­er muni­tions on tar­get any­where with­in min­utes of a call for fire. 

In addi­tion to Cor­do­va and Min­neapo­lis, AGS pro­duc­tion work is being done in Louisville, Kentucky. 

About BAE Sys­tems
BAE Sys­tems is a glob­al defense, secu­ri­ty and aero­space com­pa­ny with approx­i­mate­ly 107,000 employ­ees world­wide. The Com­pa­ny deliv­ers a full range of prod­ucts and ser­vices for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced elec­tron­ics, secu­ri­ty, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions and cus­tomer sup­port ser­vices. In 2009 BAE Sys­tems report­ed sales of £22.4 bil­lion (US$ 36.2 billion).

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please con­tact
Stephanie Bis­sell Serk­hoshi­an, BAE Sys­tems
Tel: +1 703 894 3522 Mobile: +1 703 785‑7891
stephanie.serkhoshian@baesystems.com

www.baesystems.com

Press release
BAE Systems