History
There has been research on extending the range of naval gunfire for many years. Gerald Bull and Naval Ordnance Station Indian Head tested an 11 inch sub-calibre saboted long-range round in a stretched 16"/45 Mark 6 battleship gun in 1967. The Advanced Gun Weapon System Technology Program (AGWSTP) evaluated a similar projectile with longer range in the 1980s. After the battleships were decommissioned in 1992, the AGWSTP became a 5" gun with an intended range of 180 kilometres (110 mi), which then led to the Vertical Gun for Advanced Ships (VGAS). The original DD-21 was designed around this "vertical gun", but the project ran into serious technology/cost problems and was radically scaled back to a more conventional 6.1 inch Advanced Gun System (AGS). One advantage of this move was that the gun was no longer restricted to guided munitions.
Read more about this topic: Advanced Gun System
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