9SPECIAL REPORT

PRECISIONSTRIKE

May 6, 2013 www.defensenews.com

WASHINGTON New fights andnew ways of fighting require newcapabilities. Designing those capa-bilities forunknown futurecombatis a complex challenge, but two at-tributes find utility on any battle-field: speed and precision.With that in mind, the US armed

services and their industry part-ners are developing a variety oflightweight, precision-guided mu-nitions that can be carried by indi-vidual soldiers and fired quickly inurban or austere battlefields, orlaunched from small UAVs.

USArmyunitshavealready field-ed the first generation of such a ca-pability, having deployedAeroVironments Switchbladehand-launched munition to Af-ghanistan in the fall of 2012.The camera-enabled, 6-pound,

24-inch-long Switchblade is smalland light enough to fit in a back-pack. The tube-launched UAV canbe guided to its intended target us-ing a hand-held ground control sta-tionbeforedetonatingitsexplosiveround by simply flying into the tar-get. The tiny killer can fly for up to10 minutes.Army officials confirmed in Feb-

ruary that the Switchblade official-ly became lethal earlier this year,scoring several hits on enemy tar-gets.Its gained some notoriety of its

own on both sides, includingamong the insurgents that it hasbeen targeting, said Col. PeteNew-ell, then-head of the Armys RapidEquipping Force.The Switchblade is the first take

on what the service is calling theLethal Miniature Aerial MunitionSystem (LMAMS) program. LastAugust, the Army issued a requestfor information to move forwardwith the program.

While an urgent battlefield re-quest for more Switchblades in Af-ghanistan is winding its waythrough the Pentagons bureaucra-cy, the LMAMS program is askingfor more than what the Switch-blade can currently provide.Among other things, the servicewants amunition that can loiter forup toanhourwitha rangeofup to6miles.With its eye on LMAMSaswell as

ahostof similar requirements fromthe US Marine Corps and SpecialOperationsCommand,TextronDe-fense Systems has developed its

Speed,Precision

US Army Expanding Soldier Attack Options

TEXTRON DEFENSE SYSTEMS

Quick Strike: The lightweightBattleHawk loitering munition isdesigned so a soldier can take thesystem from his backpack and firewithin 90 seconds. A video camerabuilt into its nose allows groundtroops to pilot it over rooftops or hills.

By PAUL McLEARY

See LIGHT MUNITIONS, Page 14

WASHINGTON The US Air Force has re-quested $841million in the fiscal 2014 budgetfor tactical missiles, a jump of nearly $200million from proposed 2013 levels.The money would fund the purchase of

1,164 missiles, up from 991 in the 2013 pro-posed base budget. In total, the US DefenseDepartment wants to spend $5.34 billion formissiles, spacecraft, rockets and relatedequipment.The largest financial request is for 199 of

Raytheons advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles (AMRAAMs), for which the ser-vice requested $340 million. The US Navy,whichalsousesAMRAAMs,hasrequested54missiles. The budget request also notes thatforeignmilitary sales of the AIM-120C7mod-el are projected at the rate of 200 per yearTheAirForcehasalsorequested$291.1mil-

lion for 183 joint air-to-surface standoff mis-siles (JASSMs) designed by LockheedMartin. An autonomous, air-to-ground preci-sion weapon, the JASSM comes in twomod-els: the baseline version and theextended-range (JASSM-ER) model, whichimproves the range by more than two and ahalf times. In the fiscal 2014 request, 80of themissiles will be of the ER variety, but goingforward, the service expects to phase outpurchases of the baseline model by fiscal2017.Other tactical weapons the Air Force has

requested include 225 Sidewinder missilesfor $119.9 million, 144 small diameter bombsat $42.3 million, and 413 Hellfire missiles de-signed for use by Predator unmanned air-craft. The Hellfires will cost $48.5 million.N

Aaron Mehta

USAF Budgets $841MFor Tactical Missilesown soldier-fired loitering munition thatcan be controlled from a tablet or smart-

phone device, allowing soldiers to changethe birds course simply by tapping on thetouchscreen.Dubbed the BattleHawk, the 5.5-pound

system has been demonstrated to the Armyand Special Operations Command. Its alsogearing up for a second appearance at an an-nualArmyfieldexerciseatFortBenning,Ga.,early next year.Henry Finneral, vice president for Ad-

vanced Weapons & Sensors at Textron, saidthe systemhasbeendesigned soadismount-ed soldier can take the 3.5-pound munitionand the 2-pound launching tube out of hisbackpack and fire it within 90 seconds. The40mm warhead also contains a dual-modefuze, enabling either height-of-burst or pointdetonation.Ourbird is fairly unique in that it has a car-

bon-fiber wing that wraps around the fuse-lage, Finneral said, so when fired from thelaunchtube, thewingssnapouttobettercon-trol the flight. The 18-inch-long UAV canreach speeds of 100 knots, and the Battle-Hawk can loiter for up to 30 minutes at arange of 5 kilometers. If the bomb doesntfind a target, it can self-destruct, Finneralsaid, instead of crashing and blowing up.While these precision-strike technologies

provide invaluable capabilities to the infan-tryman, the lightweight systems are still anadded load that must be lugged around ondismounted patrols.Well, theres an app for that.Instead of calling in division-level assets

suchasPredatorUAVs, thegroundforcesarelaying plans to attach precisionmunitions tosmall UAVs such as Ravens and Pumas,which can be controlled at the brigade leveland below.

One possibility is Raytheons Pyros, a 13-pound,22-inch-long,air-launchedbombwitha 5-pound fragmentation warhead that hasbeen specially designed for UAVs.JR Smith, a Raytheon senior manager of

business development, said that during test-ing last year with a laser targeting system,accuracy was within a meter of the target,while with GPS guidance, it came within3 meters.Smith said the company is aiming to have

the Pyros mounted on the Armys ShadowUAV and the Marine Corps RQ-21, which isstill in development.Weve taken a hard look at those plat-

forms, he said, adding that putting them onsmallUAVsisnotassimpleas justattachingamissile to a wing. Raytheon has developed a2.5-pound launch rack and an electronic in-terface to link theweapon to theUAV,whichhas proved out on its own testbed UAV.Testing has proved the capability as ma-

ture, Smith added, saying that literally, its amatter of days to put that stuff in and startdemonstrating for potential clients.GeneralDynamicshasdevelopedaversion

of its 81mm mortar that can be fitted onsmall UAVs, and has demonstrated the capa-bility to the Army. Joe Buzzett, director oftechnology programs at GDs Ordnance andTactical Systems, said thecompanyhas fired10 or 12 GPS-guided missiles from a TigerShark UAV that landed within 7 meters ofthe target grid.The guidance navigation and control has

all been demonstrated, he said.The service could put two of the 10-pound

mortars under each wing of a Shadow UAV.The technology is there and ready to be

used, industry representatives said, but asBuzzett put it, its the requirements thatreally are whats evolving, as Americanforces move from two relatively static con-flicts to unknown future battlefields.N

Email: pmcleary@defensenews.com.

LIGHT MUNITIONSFrom Page 9

TELAVIV Israels state-ownedRa-fael is expanding its SPICE familyof autonomous, jam-resistant, sur-gical standoff weapons with a new250-pound missile against fixedand moving targets.Now in advanced development,

the newest version of the compa-nys Smart, Precision Impact, Cost-Effective (SPICE) weapon known here as SPICE250 fea-tures the same day-night electro-optical seeker and advancedscene-matching algorithms that al-low 1,000-pound and 2,000-poundSPICE missiles to autonomouslyhome in on preplanned targetssome 100 kilometers away.Like the much larger, combat-

proven SPICEweapons, the down-sized SPICE250 is designed forone-shot, one-kill without havingto rely on satellite guidance or tar-get coordinates, industry sourceshere said. The new SPICE250 fea-turesadvanceddata linkcommuni-

cations, a multieffect warhead andinherentbombdamageassessmentcapabilities that optimize thestandoff system for strikes againstmoving targets.We believe SPICE250 will be a

compelling extensionof the SPICEfamily. Its a versatile system rele-vant forall targetsets,with theabil-ity to engage a single pixel andnothing else, said YuvalMiller, Ra-faels director for air-to-surfacesystems.Miller said the SPICE250 has the

potential to answer operationalneeds now supported by a combi-nation of munitions, including la-ser- and GPS-guided standoffpenetration weapons.It could very well change the

wayair forcesorganize their inven-tory and build their force, he said.Miller said the firm already is un-

der contract to supplySPICE250 tothe Israel Air Force and is workingto expand its portfolio of interna-tional customers.The Rafael executive said the

newweaponcouldbeintegratedona variety of platforms, with initialplans focused on F-16Is.In an interview following the No-

vember 2012Pillar ofDefense cam-paign in Gaza, an Israeli Air Force(IAF) brigadier general said theservice aims to enhance its air-to-ground strike arsenalwith systemsoffering greater precision andmul-timission flexibility.Theofficer,headoftheairbranch

on the IAF staff, said the serviceemployednearly100percent preci-sion-guided munitions against1,400 separate targets during theeight-day Pillar of Defense opera-tion, with success rates in signifi-cant excess of 90 percent.The IAF general did not mention

SPICE or other specific weaponsslated for multiyear funding, butcredited local industry for itsintimate knowledge of ourcurrent and future operationalrequirements.The Rafael SPICE, particularly

the 2000-pound version, wasproven in Israels 2006war in Leba-non; the December 2008-January2009 Cast Lead operation in Gaza;and most recently in the Pillar ofDefense anti-rocket war in Gaza.Israeli defense and industry

sources said the SPICE250 wouldprovidea locallymadeoption to re-

quirements now answered by theGBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb(SDB) byChicago-basedBoeing orthe new SDB II byWaltham,Mass.-based Raytheon.Israel has procured hundreds of

theBoeingSDBs for launchagainstfixed targets from F-15Is.TheRaytheonSDB II is slated for

low-rate production later this yearand has not yet been offered to for-eign customers. In addition to itsplanneduseagainstmoving targetsby a broad range of manned fight-ers and bombers in the U.S. inven-tory, SDB II has been proposed forlaunch by the MQ-9 Reaper UAV.

SPICE1000 for JSFIn parallel, Rafael plans to inte-

grate its 1,000-pound SPICE onIsraels planned fleet of F-35I JointStrike Fighters (JSF).The US government has not yet

authorized Israel to integrate itsown weapons into the F-35s inter-nal bays, but a defense source inWashingtonsaidpermission is like-ly to be codified in negotiations to-ward a follow-on contract forremaining aircraft.There are understandings that

could be implemented in follow-onagreements, a US defense sourcesaid. WeunderstandIsraelsdesireto integrate unique weaponry and

subsystems[into theF-35]andtheyunderstandourconcerns,especial-ly regarding the risks involved inmakingchanges to suchahighly in-tegrated fifth generation fighter.He added that that prospective

US permissionwould likely be lim-ited to JSFsdestined for Israel, andprobably would preclude Israeliexports of internally carried JSFweaponry and subsystems.Our intention is to have the

1,000-pound version actually inte-grated into the bay, Miller said. Itwill taketime,but there isaspecificintention by our IAF customers todo this.With its 100-kilometer precision

standoff capabilities and 1,000-pound warhead, Miller saidSPICE1000 offers added value notyet planned for the F-35.The IAF is convinced of its add-

edvalueandisworkingwiththerel-evant Israeli and US authorities tomake it happen, he said.According to the website of JSF

prime contractor Lockheed Mar-tin, internally carried strike sys-tems now include: 500-, 1,000- and2,000-pound Joint Direct AttackMunitions; GBU-12 Paveway IIs,the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weap-on (JSOW), SDBs; and SDB IIs.N

Email: bopallrome@defensenews.com.

Rafael Readies New PGMFor Fixed, Moving Targets

By BARBARA OPALL-ROME