Northrop Grumman M230 Link Fed (M230LF) dual-feed Bushmaster chain gun will be on display at the Association of the United States Army's annual event. (Northrop Grumman)
A new M230 Link Fed (M230LF) dual-feed Bushmaster chain gun will be on the show floor at the Association of the United States Army's (AUSA's) annual conference on 14 October.
Although the Bushmaster is already on vehicles in the US Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) family, the first customers will likely be international as there are currently no US requirements, said John McCollum, programme lead for the weapon at Northrop Grumman. Live-fire demonstrations to show off the counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UASs) capability are planned for 2025.
Growing demand for C-UAS technology is the main reason for this internal research and development (IRAD) programme, said McCollum during an 8 October briefing. The dual feeds enable an operator to switch between XM1211 proximity-fuzed rounds for C-UAS and XM1198 high-explosive, dual-purpose rounds for anti-armour capability.
The company claims the weapon is the “first medium-calibre chain gun in the world to offer a dual feed”.
“A couple” of customers in Europe have “strong interest” in addition to other countries, he said. “We're going to service those allies and partners internationally, and then if the US Army would decide that they want to change their requirement, we obviously could support that,” McCollum said.
The new weapon is about 20 lb heavier than the single-belt variant, a marginal amount of weight compared with the roughly 1,000 lb that a remote weapon station, gun, and ammunition add up.
Range is still about 1,500–1,700 m on ground targets and around 1,000 m for aerial targets due to the 30×113 calibre of the gun, McCollum noted.
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