Zeroing in on future US artillery requirements, Elbit Systems of America presented a model of the company’s Sigma 155 mm wheeled self-propelled howitzer (SPH) at the 2024 Association of the US Army (AUSA) exhibition, held in Washington, DC, from 14 to 16 October.
Fielded in mid-2024 as the Roem with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), where it will replace hundreds of tracked M109 SPHs, the Sigma system is billed by Elbit as the world’s first fully automatic 155 mm artillery system in that it features a fully automatic, remote-controlled, self-contained turret featuring auto-laying and auto-ammunition-loading capabilities.
Based on a 10×10 chassis supplied by Oshkosh, the Roem/Sigma SPH is manufactured by Elbit Systems of America in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Sigma SPH’s 155 mm L52 gun has a range of up to 40 km, can fire across a full 360° and is capable of a rate of fire of up to 10 rounds per minute, including multiple-round/simultaneous impact fire missions. Forty rounds of onboard ammunition are carried by the system.
Manned by a crew of three, the Sigma SPH is airliftable by a C-17 transport aircraft.
The US Army is still considering its options for future artillery systems. In March 2024 the army announced the scrapping of its programme for a tracked 155 mm Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) system, which placed a new 58-calibre gun onto the in-service M109A7 Paladin tracked SPH, and the army has meanwhile indicated that its towed 155 mm M777 howitzers will ultimately need to be replaced. Speaking at the AUSA Global Force conference in March 2024, the head of US Army Futures Command, General James Rainey, indicated that “The future is not bright for towed artillery.”
Although the army conducted trials of foreign wheeled SPHs in 2021 that ultimately went nowhere, it is still open to the idea of procuring wheeled SPHs, given that a number of such systems have performed well in Ukraine.
Thus, looking to the future, as well as considering tracked SPH solutions, such as an upgrade to the M109A7 Paladin, the K9 from Hanwha and the PzH 2000 from KNDS Deutshland, the US Army is also looking at wheeled systems like the Sigma, the Archer system from BAE Systems and the CAESAR and Boxer 8×8-based RCH 155 systems from KNDS.
