Wed, Sep 17, 2003
To Replenish Weapons Used in 'Iraqi Freedom'
Raytheon has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Navy for
production of Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOW) to replenish systems
expended during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The contracts call for
Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson (AZ), to produce JSOW-As to be
delivered by July 2005.
"JSOW performed superbly in Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was the
weapon of choice for time-sensitive targets. Rapidly replacing
those that were expended is high priority for the Navy," said Capt.
Dave Dunaway, the Naval Air Systems Command's JSOW program
manager.
"We are very pleased to be making a weapon system which is so
highly regarded by the war fighter for its ease of use and
capability to do the job," said Jon Jones, Raytheon's Strike
Weapons vice president. "We have energized the JSOW team to add
this supplemental amount on top of our normal production runs in
order to refill the Navy inventory with this critical weapon as
soon as possible."
JSOW is a joint Navy and Air Force program. It is a family of
low-cost, air-to-ground weapons that employ an integrated Global
Positioning System/Inertial Navigation system that guides the
weapon to the target. More than 400 JSOW-As have been used in
combat operations to date.
The JSOW family uses a common and modular weapon body capable of
carrying various payloads. Its long standoff range, greater than 63
nautical miles, allows delivery from well outside the lethal range
of most enemy air defenses. The AGM-154A (also called JSOW-A)
variant dispenses BLU-97 combined-effect bomblets for use against
soft and area targets. It is produced for use on the F/A-18, F-16,
F-15E, B-1, B-2 and B-52 aircraft. The AGM-154C, or JSOW-C, variant
incorporates an imaging infrared seeker for high precision and a
Broach multi-stage warhead which has both a blast-fragmentation and
hard target penetration capability for use against point targets.
JSOW-C entered low-rate initial production in June. It is currently
being produced for Navy F/A-18s and has been selected by Poland for
use on its F-16s. The contract is valued at $55 million.
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