Photo By Mark Schauer | For most of its history, developmental testing of artillery has been the core mission...... read more read more
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For most of its history, developmental testing of artillery has been the core mission of U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG).
This testing encompasses all facets of the King of Battle, from the gun tubes and chambers on howitzers to the propellant and cartridges of the shells themselves.
The intelligent use of artillery has proved a decisive factor in battle after battle, cannons having the ability to rain devastating, accurate fire on enemy troop concentrations. As artillery technology evolved across previous decades, YPG was on the cutting-edge testing guided and semi-guided munitions capable of hitting within mere meters of a target kilometers away.
In recent decades, one of the innovations tested here was the Modular Artillery Charge System (MACS) that serves as the propelling charges for 155 mm artillery rounds. MACS consists of two types of propelling charges. The M231 is the low-zone component fired either singly or in pairs for shorter ranges, and the M232 is the high-zone component fired in multiples of three-to-five for extended ranges. MACS was developed in the early 2000s as a compliment to the Crusader self-propelled howitzer. MACS was necessary to accommodate the platform’s ammunition autoloader.
“Prior to that, the propelling charges in use by the Army were bag-based,” said Steve Flores, Long Range Precision Fires Integrator. “They weren’t very rigid or conducive to putting into an ammunition handling system. The designers made sure the new charges were still compatible with the legacy weapons systems.”
Though Crusader was never fielded, the MACS endured. Since there was a difference in chamber volume and barrel length between the Crusader and legacy systems, compromises were necessary to allow for interoperability across systems. Recently, YPG has been testing improvements to the MACS system for the current generation of artillery. A common ignitor for both the M231 and M232 is also being evaluated to minimize maintenance of the weapon.
“They are reconfiguring and improving upon the charges for use in the current cannon system,” said Flores. “They are improving the way it ignites for more uniformity and to mitigate breech oscillations at high zones.”
Over time, un-uniform powder ignitions can leave unwanted residues in a gun barrel, and oscillations can eventually create reliability problems for a howitzer’s firing mechanism.
“Another key piece of data propelling charge designers require is how the gun tube is wearing after firing the new charge,” said Flores. “They need to know if it is wearing faster than with the legacy charge.”
YPG’s ammunition plant has been instrumental in building multiple experimental formulations, shapes, and configurations for new propelling charges.
“Every time the product manager has an experiment they want to try out, all of the propelling charges and ignitors are hand assembled at the ammo plant,” said Flores. “The ammo plant will assemble them to the customer’s instructions in any and all combinations of things.”
In fielding the best equipment possible, testers are particularly interested in inspecting mortar and artillery equipment for microscopic anomalies. It’s not the most dramatic side of testing, but it is critical to the safety and success of American Soldiers, and David Le, mechanical engineer in the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) Physical Test Facility, is regarded as one of the most experienced professionals in the field of non-destructive testing.
“A picture is worth a thousand words,” said Le. “By the same token, one measurement is worth a thousand guesses.”
Le gets up close and personal with gun tubes using high tech equipment found exclusively at YPG but also uses the same cannon tube bore scope commonly used by artillery units in the field. Over the years, Le constructed a clean room and began adding and developing specialized measurement devices, such as a laser bore mapper, from scratch. The lab’s ultrasonic immersion machine was adapted for use for inspecting gun tubes from technology commonly used in the petroleum industry to inspect pipes. It uses water as the medium to impede the signal from a five-channel transducer that electronically measures an object placed inside a massive tank. The outer tank holds 1400 gallons of water and can accommodate the tube or breach component of even the largest towed howitzer in the Army’s inventory. A smaller, 300-gallon tank within the larger one can be used for smaller items like a mortar tube.
Non-destructive artillery testing also extends to projectiles. The proving ground has a projectile imbalance measurement machine that can detect the dynamic center of gravity and inertia of a shell. It operates on the principle of measuring balance in a tire, albeit in an inherently lethal artillery shell and uses a cylindrical device to hold the projectile firmly in place as it undergoes intense revolutions. This manner of testing is important as a projectile’s propellant could shift inside, especially in extreme temperatures, thus making the projectile off balance.
YPG’s Metrology and Simulation Branch is also pressing forward with utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) for further test efficiency gains. With decades of data from laser-bore measuring of artillery tubes as they wear, an AI could be trained to help assess possible problems and predict expected life of the tubes.
“Using in-bore pictures, laser scans, and other physical measurements from various inspection technologies, an AI could analyze and correlate past and current failures across all these data sources, compiling them into a comprehensive report for our test customers,” said Savanna Silva, YPG Metrology Branch Chief. “We’re not stopping there: we aim to take it further by developing AI capable of performing predictive wear analysis on weapon systems. This would integrate data from both fielded and experimental ammunition test at YPG.”
The metrology branch is also seeking to train AI that can monitor the life cycle of piezoelectric pressure transducers used in testing artillery here.
"We've never fully characterized how tourmaline crystals in our piezoelectric pressure transducers behave over time or under repeated high-pressure events, as we've always assumed how they would perform," said Silva. "Our high-pressure tests have always been single use only for the transducers. Now, it's time to refine our approach. By leveraging our data and using AI to analyze it, we can gain a much deeper understanding of their performance."
| Date Taken: | 04.21.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 04.21.2026 09:52 |
| Story ID: | 562616 |
| Location: | YUMA PROVING GROUND, ARIZONA, US |
| Web Views: | 36 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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