First Shipment Of New Air-To-Ground Missile
Raytheon Tuesday presented the Navy with the unitary/penetration
variant of the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW-C), the newest version
of the successful unpowered air-to-ground weapon system.
The first production delivery ceremony took place at Raytheon
Missile Systems in Tucson.
"JSOW-C is a significant addition to the warfighting capability
of the Navy and Marine Corps," said Capt. David Dunaway, the Navy's
JSOW program manager. "Putting this weapon in the hands of the
warfighter culminates the long, hard work of the Navy/Raytheon, BAE
Systems and Thales Missile Electronics team."
"We are proud to be providing the Navy with this very affordable
weapon. The JSOW-C's unitary/penetrator variant offers greatly
increased capabilities, particularly against concealed and
deceptive targets," said Ron Shields, Raytheon's JSOW program
director.
JSOW-C incorporates a Raytheon-developed uncooled, long-wave
infrared seeker with automatic target acquisition algorithms,
providing the Navy a launch-and-leave weapon with a long-range
standoff precision strike capability. JSOW-C is the first US weapon
to incorporate the two stage broach blast fragmentation/penetration
warhead, developed by the United Kingdom's BAE Systems. Thales
provides the fuze. JSOW-C has a unique capability for a glide
weapon in its ability to attack a hardened target in a
near-horizontal mode.
JSOW is a joint Navy and Air Force program. It is a family of
low-cost, highly survivable air-to-ground weapons employing 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 a variety of payloads and handling multiple munitions. Its
long standoff range demonstrated at 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 (JSOW-C) is currently being
produced for Navy F/A-18s and has been selected by Poland for use
on its F-16s.
The Navy/Raytheon team is developing a Block II configuration of
the JSOW weapon system that provides significant cost reductions to
all JSOW versions. The first Block II configuration weapons will be
delivered in 2007. Additionally, other JSOW improvements are under
way to add anti-ship capability, reduce unexploded ordnance
concerns, hit moving targets, provide bomb hit indication, provide
network capability and further reduce costs.
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