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Executive Overview: Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons
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| 19 February 2007 |
By Rob Hewson, JALW Editor
Small bomb revolution
2006 was the year that Boeing's GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) became an operational weapons system, and started a modern revolution in miniaturised munitions. The first SDBs were delivered to the US Air Force (USAF) in August 2006 and deployed to Iraq in September with the F-15Es of the 48th Fighter Wing. The first bombs were dropped in combat on 11 October.
The future trend for the SDB programme, and all similar weapons, will be not accuracy alone but scalable effects. There are concerns that even a 250-lb warhead is still too large for use on many of the targets that tactical airpower has been deployed against, in Afghanistan and Iraq, for example. In September the USAF issued the first phase contract for the SDB Focussed Lethality Munition (FLM), which will modify the basic weapon to use a new carbon fibre body and a multi-phased blast explosive that can be set differently for various targets, and target environments. Developments like the FLM design will be at the heart of any future use of intelligent airpower.
The next big missile?
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control has broken cover on studies for a next generation very long range cruise missile for the USAF and US Navy. Lockheed Martin's concept is known as Cruise Missile Extended Range (Cruise Missile XR) and gives an indication where the thinking of US rivals - Raytheon and Boeing - may also be headed. The weapon will be a 5,000 lb (2,268 kg) class missile (incorporating a 2,000 lb warhead) with a range in excess of 1,000 n miles (1,852 km). It will be fully datalinked and capable of 'seekerless precision' (potentially combining enhanced GPS navigation with networked third-party targeting data). The warhead (ideally a multi-mode unit) will be effective against hardened buried targets with the potential to fit precision-guided submunitions if ever required.
What the US is seeking is a new cruise missile system with more or less the same reach as today's Tomahawk weapons, but with much increased accuracy and a significantly larger payload. The Cruise Missile XR has been designed for carriage by tactical fighters, large bombers or even submarines. Other similar designs will emerge from the shadows sooner or later as the US considers its long-range strike options for the 2015-2020 timeframe.
Harbingers of directed energy
The only two practical applications for airborne directed-energy (DE) weapons - at least in the unclassified world - had moved closer to reality by the end of 2006. Practical applications of this technology remain out of reach for the foreseeable future; this is of more concern to company shareholders than warfighters. The US is leading the way in acknowledged, funded research and its DE programmes reflect the state of the art, namely hugely expensive and utterly unproven.
Topping the list is Boeing's Airborne Laser (ABL) programme for the US Missile Defense Agency. More than 10 years from winning the original ABL contract, Boeing rolled out the completed YAL-1 prototype aircraft in October. Boeing is also working on fitting the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) system to a Lockheed Martin C-130H Hercules testbed, to demonstrate the use of lasers in the air-to-ground role. Both the ABL and ATL aircraft will fly with their high-powered lasers installed later in 2007. Once some real data has been collected it will become clearer if the prophets of DE can make good on their claims.
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© 2007 Jane's Information Group
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