...approach and the lessons learned, from searching for and acquiring program sponsor, through planning and execution of hardware development, test validation, and preparation for transition to implementation.

**********

The U.S. Army always seeks to improve the performance of its tactical systems. The methods by which these performance improvements are initiated, quantified, validated, approved, and implemented are sometimes long-lived and torturous. The following gives a view from the bench level as to how these processes unfolded and the lessons learned along the way.

Ballisticians have long suspected that a gun's centerline contour has a significant affect on its accuracy. Hence, the ability to control the centerline has been an essential requirement in the system specifications of the Abrams tank series. However, imposing and achieving tighter tolerances on the centerline would have been impossible without the recent discovery of a method to precisely control a gun tube's centerline shape. Although characterizing and perfecting the means of application was the focus of the barrel reshaping program, technical details are omitted here in favor of documenting the programmatic and acquisition-centered problems and lessons learned in starting and managing this effort.

The greatest beneficiaries of reshaping will be the poor-shooting or rogue tanks that have accuracy problems. The Fleet-zero approach currently used applies a computer correction factor to be used in firing and is based on the results of thousands of previous tank firings. Fleet-zero preempts individually characterizing each tank barrel through firings, which is prohibitively expensive from a time and cost perspective. The problem is that while the correction factors are based on the average, some of the tanks may be far from average and therefore suffer accuracy shortcomings. The reshaping effort creates a barrel centerline that is the fleet average (within reshaping tolerances) and minimizes accuracy deviations due to centerline differences.

FUNDING THE PROCESS

Every researcher knows that many good ideas remain unexploited for lack of funding; somewhere, somehow, money must be made available to carry the idea from concept through development and validation to the implementation stage. This is particularly problematic when the scientific discovery, such as barrel reshaping, does not occur under the auspices of a larger, overriding program with a well-defined funding line.

As described above, the primary benefit from barrel reshaping is improved accuracy for the fleet-average barrel. Figure 1 outlines a significant events calendar, with time zero marking the onset of the fully funded, well-defined barrel reshaping initiative (BRI). Scientists at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory's (ARIAs) Weapons and Materials Research Directorate (WMRD) demonstrated that a barrel could be precisely shaped approximately three years prior to the time line origin. In the terminology of technology readiness level (TRL), it was a TRL three or fourth event. This characterization is that the technology is slightly beyond a proof of concept, but not all the technical details are known. Demonstrating that barrel reshaping can positively affect the mean projectile impact point occurred a year later. Figure 2 shows the benefit of reshaping for barrel serial number (SN) 4233 against a tank silhouette at a selected range.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

If, as noted, there was no existing umbrella program, then it might be asked who incurred the concept-demonstration costs of the first two years. The answer to that question is many-sided. First, in practice, there is latitude given to researchers at the bench level to explore fresh ideas and innovative techniques that may lead to new program start-ups. The WMRD Director's Research Initiative Program is such an example.

Second, in a case where funding would normally be an explicit requirement (such as range testing), an economical solution is to piggyback one...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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