The M35, known during development as the EX35 and XM35, is an American 105 mm caliber low-recoil

tank gun A tank gun is the main armament of a tank. Modern tank guns are high-velocity, large-caliber artilleries capable of firing kinetic energy penetrators, high-explosive anti-tank, and cannon-launched guided projectiles. Anti-aircraft guns can also ...

. The M35 was developed for the U.S. Army and

U.S. Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through comb ...

Mobile Protected Gun Program of the early 1980s. It was integrated onto the Marine Corps LAV-105, and the U.S. Army's M8 Armored Gun System and

M10 Booker The M10 Booker is an armored fighting vehicle under development by General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) for the United States Army, developed from the GDLS Griffin II armored fighting vehicle as the winner of its Mobile Protected Firepower pr ...

vehicles.

History

The M35 was designed and developed by

Benét Laboratories Benét Laboratories, part of the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center, is the US Army's primary design, development, engineering and production and field support facility for large caliber armament systems, including can ...

, Watervliet Arsenal in 1983 for the Mobile Protected Gun Program, a joint

and U.S. Army program. The program was canceled the following year, however the Large Caliber Weapon System Laboratory (LCWSL) mounted the EX35 in an XM4 Armored Gun System (AGS)

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

basket during FY1984. LCWSL fired 100 rounds from the gun.

Armored Gun System

In 1991, the Senate and House Armed Services Committees joined in directing the Army to integrate the

and Watervliet Arsenal EX35 gun of the LAV-105 with an AGS chassis. This joint project never came to fruition. When the Army began its Armored Gun System (AGS) competition in 1991, the Army agreed to furnish the winning bidder with the EX35 gun. In 1992, the Army selected FMC's Close Combat Vehicle Light as the winner of the AGS competition. United Defense (created by a merger of FMC and BMY) built six prototypes of the CCVL under the designation XM8, later type-classified as the M8. The Army canceled the AGS in 1996 due to budget concerns. United Defense proposed the AGS to meet the Army's Interim Armored Vehicle requirement, however the Army instead chose

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

' proposal, later type classified as the Stryker

M1128 mobile gun system The M1128 Mobile Gun System (MGS) is an eight-wheeled armored car of the Stryker armored fighting vehicle family, mounting a 105 mm tank gun, based on the Canadian LAV III light-armored vehicle manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems for ...

armed with the M68A2.

M10 Booker

In January 2023, an Army report noted unexpectedly "high levels of toxic fumes" from the spent rounds were being vented into the GDLS

. The Army's long-term solution is to add a purge system to clear the fumes.

Design

The M35 is about lighter than the M68 used on the M60 tank. The XM35 has a bore evacuator. The M35 on the BAE Systems XM1302 Mobile Protected Firepower variant uses a bore evacuation fan. This is because the gun, autoloader, and associated components are isolated from the crew.

References

Sources

* {{Post WWII American tank guns Tank guns of the United States