Lockheed Martin Unit to Test Rapid-Fire Millennium Gun At Sea

By RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor

The Millennium Gun, a small-caliber rapid-fire gun intended for force protection, is scheduled for at-sea testing early next year, after having completed its initial round of ground tests at a target range in Camden, Ark.

The new gun system, adapted by Lockheed Martin Maritime Sensors & Systems from the Sky Shield air-defense gun developed by Oerlikon Contaves, a Swiss company, is being evaluated by the Naval Sea Systems Command to meet a Navy requirement for force protection against a variety of threats, including fast-attack craft, aircraft, antiship missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and shore targets in littoral areas.

John Wojnar, director of business development for Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors in Akron, Ohio, told Seapower the Millennium Gun is a single-barrel, revolving chamber cannon that fires a 35mm projectile at a rate of 1,000 rounds per minute. It is capable of firing armored-piercing rounds and a new munition called AHEAD (Advanced Hit Efficiency And Destruction) that dispenses 152 tungsten projectiles that form a cone-shaped pattern. The gun is lethal to ranges of 4.5 kilometers, depending on the type of target and its speed and radar cross-section.

“The round is programmed as it leaves the barrel of the gun,” said Tom Thrall, the company’s director for gun systems.

The Millennium Gun is fully automatic and can be guided by a variety of sensors. A single operator in a ship’s combat direction center can control the gun.

“Our long-term vision was that if the Navy just wanted to consolidate and have one smart, small-caliber gun to be able to counter swarm (boat) attacks, or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) … or countering any type of surface, shore target, aircraft, whatever the case may be, the combination of a high rate of fire and a programmable smart munition would be the best to meet the requirements,” Wojnar said.

The gun could be a mission module for the Littoral Combat Ship, for example, or high-speed vessels, Wojnar said, and move from craft to craft. Six of the guns have been sold to the Danish Navy.

Defense Industry Notes

 The keel of the first Littoral Combat Ship was laid on June 2 at the Marinette Marine shipyard in Marinette, Wis. The ship — being built by Lockheed Martin with team members Marinette Marine, Bollinger Shipyards and Gibbs & Cox — will be named USS Freedom to acknowledge the founding principles of the United States and honor towns named Freedom in nine states.

 The first dry cargo/ammunition ship — built by the National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. in San Diego — was launched on May 21. The 689-foot-long ship was christened Lewis and Clark in honor of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who explored what became the western United States in the early 1800s. The ship will be commissioned in 2006, 200 years after Lewis and Clark completed their expedition.

 The operational evaluation of the Navy’s new MH-60R maritime strike helicopter began in May at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. The evaluation of the helicopter — built by Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin — is planned to run through September and is a necessary prerequisite for a decision for full-rate production.

 The APG-81 active electronically scanned array radar designed for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter by Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems succeeded in detecting airborne targets during laboratory tests in May.