Apropos of our earlier post on precision guided indirect fire and the Army’s decision to cut its buy of Excalibur precision 155mm rounds, our own Christian Lowe checks in from his embed out near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border:

I spoke with an artillery forward observer with Angel Company, 3-187, at FOB Sharana the other day who told me about the few times he’s employed the Excalibur precision 155 round.

He said despite the infrequent use and the Army’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for the weapon, it sure makes a heck of an impression on the Taliban – so much so that they’ve derived a nickname for the round.

According to the artillery FO, radio traffic pulled from Taliban radio chatter indicates they call the Excalibur round “The Finger of Death.” When the FO told me this, he extended his index finger and pointed in a long arc right into the palm of his hand – showing that when they fire one of these, it hits exactly where they aimed it and kills everyone there.

We’re a little too far from the flagpole out here to slice and dice the internal debates in DC over this round. But suffice it to say the bad guys around here would prefer that the “Finger of Death” not point at them.