Raytheon plans new roles for Griffin mini-missile

Raytheon wants to expand the scope of its Griffin stand-off precision guided weapon by developing new versions and moving beyond the Special Operations customer base the missile has today.

Griffin is being built in modest numbers for US Air Force (USAF) and US Marine Corps aviation units operating within US Special Operations Command (SOCOM). New versions of the weapon for the US Army and the US Navy would boost production, says Raytheon.

"Production in 2011 and 2012 is 600 Griffins a year," said Harry Schulte, vice-president of Air Warfare Systems for Raytheon Missile Systems. "We get small orders from strange customers and that's just not economical. I am buying long-lead items in batches of 250 twice a year - we can't do it like that, it's too expensive.

"We are selling Griffins for a little over $100,000, but I think we can do better. SOCOM has a lead time of less than one year to place orders because Raytheon is going out and buying materials on its own, ahead of time. That is taking 10 or 15 per cent out of the cost of a batch of 600 – and before they were buying in batches of just 250."