It looks like the Air Force got a new arrow in its quiver recently with the first employment in combat of the new Guided Bomb Unit 54 — a hybrid Joint Direct Attack Munition/Laser Guided Bomb.
Seems that the Air Force issued an urgent need statement for a 500 lb. munition that could take out moving targets. Maybe the fighter jocks were getting jealous of their missile-wielding robot friends who seem to be the go-to platforms for such moving target engagements.
Officials in Iraq announced that on Aug. 12 (why could they not talk about this any sooner? Typical Air Force) F-16s had engaged a moving vehicle with the so-called LJDAM:
The GBU-54 is the U.S. Air Forces newest 500-pound precision weapon, equipped with a special targeting system that uses a combination of GPS and laser guidance to accurately engage and destroy moving targets.
On, Aug. 12, 2008, F-16s from the 77th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron deployed to Joint Base Balad, Iraq, successfully executed this combat first when the weapon was employed against a moving enemy vehicle in Diyala province, Iraq…
Identified as an urgent operational need in early 2007, the Air Force completed the GBU-54s development and testing cycle in less than 17 months, fielding it aboard 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing aircraft in May.
We have consistently used precision-guided weapons to engage stationary threats with superb combat effects, said Brig. Gen. Brian Bishop, 332nd AEW commander. This weapon allows our combat pilots to engage a broad range of moving targets with dramatically increased capabilities and it increases our ability to strike the enemy throughout a much, much broader engagement envelope…
“At end game, on Aug. 12, the team of the joint terminal attack controller, alongside his ground unit commander in this event, ensured all criteria were met for the first combat delivery of the LJDAM. And finally, our F-16 pilot accurately and precisely delivered and guided the weapon to desired weapons effects, the disabling and destruction of an enemy vehicle and personnel, Gen.North said.
All right, so ignore the retarded “cop speak” of the last paragraph (I mean, who says “ensured all criteria were met for combat delivery” — just say “we lazed the target and said ‘cleared hot!’ ”) — this seems like a pretty interesting development and one that could improve the Air Force’s ability to play in an urban fight. But my question is how expensive is it and what’s the ROI compared to a hellfire shot by a Reaper? Again, it looks once more like the Air Force saw an “urgent need” to give its fighter jocks a job other than CAS orbits and “tron banging” for IEDs.
– Christian
Considering the Hellfire, at 70,000, a pop is little under twice as exensive as 500lb JDAM, I’d imagine that the ROI is still on the side of LJDAM.
I maybe wrong here, but “ensured all criteria were met for combat delivery”. Probably means the bad guy couldn’t turn a corner, and place a building or obstruction between himself & his soon to be life altering experience.
nice!
considering that these are kits strapped onto old dummy bombs — this is a really useful and cost-effective (hopefully…) technology.
I mean — who says the word ‘retarted’ in such a context? Catch up with the times and show some respect.
> But my question is how expensive is it
http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2007/05/21/daily2.html says the contract for 600 LJDAM kits was worth $28.8 million, or $48,000 per unit. That’s about twice what standard JDAM tail kits cost. Since the 600-unit lot was the first one, there may have been start-up and other nonrecurring costs, which would make future LJAMs less expensive. Or not.
…He said “retarded”?! OH NOES! run for the hills before i call the political correctness police!
What are the advantage of a Laser JDAM vs a GPS assisted LGB?
Hitting an 8,500 dollar truck with an 85,000 dollar missile fired by an 18 million dollar jet. This is the brilliance we pay the Air Force for.
We have to be so obsessed with the lie of multi-role aircraft that the A-10 is the only plane we have slow enough to do a simple strafing run. Pathetic.
*sigh*
Defensetech just gets worse and worse these days.
Feel like including some pertinent information, like, I dunno, the price?! (Yes, I read the entire article. Please find out the damn price. Where is the reporting on the SCAR or other interesting and noteworthy items? I digress…)
How about a comparison to other similar-capability weapons?
I love how we just assign the military an open check on all their weapon systems (many of which continue failing to deliver), even when the national debt is at a record level and our school systems and infrastructure are increasingly terrible.
The day we stop using the uber efficient A-10 for CAS is the day I shed a tear over an airplane. An F-35/F-22 for CAS (aside from dropping a bloody jdam, which it seems a C-47 could do now days)? Eat a dick, pentagon.
500 lbs? How are these moving targets, anyway? Wouldn’t something more appropriately sized be more useful, especially if you intend to drop one in an urban or semi-urban environment?
I agree the GMLRS and the Excalibur represent the next generation for air support. They aught to develop variants of the GMLRS for longer ranger and greater payload and further eliminate the need for air support missions.
>Hitting an 8,500 dollar truck with an 85,000
>dollar missile fired by an 18 million dollar
>jet. This is the brilliance we pay the Air Force
>for.
The US Army Javelin light infantry anti-tank missile costs $100,000 per missile because it has a fire and forget thermal imaging seeker.
US Army troopers, American Marines and British Army soldiers have all used them to shoot at and kill Al-Qaeda and Talaban snipers with $800 Russian sniper rifles.
War costs what it costs.
That we can use high tech toys to kill the bad guys via “dollar over kill” is not a bad thing as precision weapons mean we kill fewer civilians than terrorists, which helps win us the war in the long run.
Yet doing so
…Yet doing so really does not cost the American military as much as losing a sniper rifle does to Al-Qaeda.
Over 30,000 Javelin missiles have been produced to since 1996 and their rocket motor shelf life is less than 15 years.
For purposes of expending in combat, using an early production vintage Javelin cost the US Army less than replacing the $800 sniper rifle cost Al-Qaeda.
That is the advantage of being a superpower.
Trent makes great points as usual.
Found this in an old RAND study:
Recurring Peacetime Costs for Selected Unit Types
Discusing the cost tradeoffs of the GBU-54 vs. Excalibur etc misses the point. Because there are tims that the Excalibur cant be used, namely when the bad guys are outside of the range of the Excalibur. Thats when an air droped weapon is usefull.
>Because there are times that the Excalibur cant be
>used, namely when the bad guys are outside of the
>range of the Excalibur. Thats when an air dropped
>weapon is useful
A single CH-47 mission can carry a light weight 155mm gun and one ton of Excalibur rounds (about 20) to most mountain peaks in Afghanistan.
That gun has a 20km range with Excalibur. It can cover multiple ground patrols in its weapons delivery fan with a reaction time only an aircraft orbiting over head of any single patrol with GBU-54’s can match.
The more issues of coordination and availability between the USAF and the ground services, the less they will rely on strike fighters for PGM fire support.
> A single CH-47 mission can carry a light
> weight 155mm gun and one ton of Excalibur
> rounds (about 20) to most mountain peaks in
> Afghanistan.
Sure, but that approach brings logistical and operational problems.
If you want to put a 155 on a mountain to cover a patrol that wouldnt be a problem, at first. After a while the the Taliban/AQ fighters would get wise to where the 155 was getting placed and any suprise would be lost. OTOH if you wanted to base the 155’s more perminately then you will need a lot of them cover the area that needs to be covered. The Afghan Pakistan border itself is 2400 km long. With a range of 20 km and a need of mutual support the 155’s would need to be placed 10km apart. That means 240 155’s to protect the border alone. Those firebases will need to be defended by an additional 50 — 150 soldiers. Thats a lot of troops and supplies. If you want to argue costs, the costs here appear to be high.
>The Afghan Pakistan border itself is 2400 km long.
>With a range of 20 km and a need of mutual support
>the 155’s would need to be placed 10km apart. That
>means 240 155’s to protect the border alone. Those
>firebases will need to be defended by an additional
>50 — 150 soldiers. Thats a lot of troops and
>supplies. If you want to argue costs, the costs here
>appear to be high.
The 155mm gun plus Excalibur is not the only or even primary Army Ballistic PGM.
They have produced more than 5,000 GLRS with 70km range and have just started production of a variant with a 85km range.
GMLRS would be in the permanent fire bases on HIMARS or tracked MLRS launchers and the 155mm gun would be the air assault fire support component for patrols.
> They have produced more than 5,000 GLRS with
> 70km range and have just started production of
> a variant with a 85km range.
Okay, now you can cover the border with 60 fire bases. They still require defensive troops and tremendous logistical support.
But, there is more to the AF, not to mention Marines, and Naval aviation, than ground support. What about interdiction? and deep strike missions?
Again, both air launched and tube/rocket muntions are usefull. Both have their time and place.
While the language quoted is a bit weasly, one assumes that the “combat first” is hitting a moving target in real combat with this weapon, and not simply hitting a moving target from the air in combat, something that happened many hundreds of times in the early Iraq War from fixed wing aircraft.
Presumably, the real significance of the LJDAM is that it allows a moving target to be hit from a greater range, hence reducing the historical importance of getting close to a target for close air support missions.
In other words, the LJDAM is the kind of weapon that makes it less important to have a specialized A-10 replacement, as opposed to a more typical F-35A, for this kind of mission, in future wars.
> The requirement for the total number of fire
> points will fall as the range of GMLRS rises,
> or the Army makes 300km range unitary ATACMS
> available for the mission.
Yes, the range can be increased, but when will they be active? What will the unit cost be? And you still have logistical and security costs.
> How much interdiction and deep strike is (a)
> required and (b) possible in a low intensity
> combat situation like Afghanistan?
In the current Afghan situation, interdiction and deep strike missions are few. But there is more to fighting wars than the Afghanistan 2008. In other cases interdiction and deep stike missions will be necessary.
> Interdiction in such a situation often requires
> 1. Eyes on human surveillance by Special
> Forces/Long Range Recon patrols to confirm the
> target/avoid collateral damage and
> 2. Rapid response once the decision to engage
> is made.
The observation and laseing of targets can be accomplished by manned or unmanned aircraft.
> Increasingly, UAV’s are a 24/7 asset as well
> because they cost less than manned aircraft to
> buy or operate
Yep, they are, and they can drop bombs too.
> thanks to flight control software automation –
> trained pilots are not required to operate
> them. All you need for the newest UAV controls
> are kids who grew up with play station or WII
> to operate them.
Thats the popular conception, dont know if its realy true, but popular non the less. And BTW as the software gets more complicated, the UAVs get more expensive, and thus less numerous.
> What is happening is that the manned strike
> fighter close air support is being displaced by
> a cheaper UAV/Ballistic PGM/Artillery observer
> paradigm during a low intensity conflict
> situation.
AS I said, There is more than CAS in low intesity conflicts. What works in Afghanistan, might not work so well in other parts of the world.