Posted on 03/13/2025 2:30:20 PM PDT by marcusmaximus
The U.S. is poised to resume shipments to Ukraine of long-range bombs known as Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB), after they were upgraded to better counter Russian jamming, two people familiar with the weapon told Reuters.
The munitions will arrive amid reports that Ukraine's supply of similarly-ranged Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) has been depleted.
-snip-
President Donald Trump's administration agreed on Tuesday to resume military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine after Kyiv said it was ready to support Washington's proposal for a 30-day ceasefire with Russia.
In recent weeks, 19 GLSDBs were test-fired to assess the effectiveness of the upgrades. Part of the modifications involved reinforcing connections within the weapon to enhance its resilience, the people said.
The reintroduction of the GLSDB onto the battlefield could occur in the coming days, as a stockpile is already present in Europe. The last time Ukrainians used the weapons was months ago, one of the people said.
Russian jamming had kept many of Ukraine's relatively new long-range GLSDBs from hitting their intended targets, three people familiar with the challenges told Reuters last May.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
The US knew that GPS could be jammed for over 20 years. That’s why newer systems like ATACMS and GMLRS (the HIMARS munitions) were made with inertial nav as well.
SDB and JDAM are older tech.
Quite what effect modern GPS jamming could have was going to be unknown until it was actually tried on a large scale.
“The US knew that GPS could be jammed for over 20 years. That’s why newer systems like ATACMS and GMLRS (the HIMARS munitions) were made with inertial nav as well.”
Then why are we reading this article?
I did look it up for myself. It doesn’t change all the fuss made over them in the media and by politicians. Graham was giddy over them.
After they lost their best pilot in that crash right after receiving the very first F-16s, we never heard much about them again. Graham was begging for retired NATO pilots to come fly them, never heard whether there were any takers.
There was this one video they touted about six or eight weeks ago of an F-16 flying along over western Ukraine on a nice day, just flying along. I guess to prove there was someone who could fly it. Just fly it along in a nice straight line.
They have regularly been flying CAP (combat air patrol) along likely cruise missile approaches once an alert is received. They are generally tasked with shooting down the most numerous Kh101 class (slow) of cruise missiles. This spares the Patriots for ballistic missiles or high-speed missiles for which the F16 AMRAAMS are unsuited.
It all depends on the news you follow.
Because it seems that this SDB/MLRS hybrid has finally received an inertial nav upgrade?
Didn't they used to call those "missiles"?
Look, get your war news from places like this. There are tons of articles cited from which you have a better chance of getting a comprehensive “open source” picture.
Even google news does a decent job if you train it to feature military tech stories.
“Because it seems that this SDB/MLRS hybrid has finally received an inertial nav upgrade?”
So it did take 20 YEARS, and a war against Russia, for the Neocons to finally figure that out.
Best and brightest! LOL.
I check that site from time to time, have for years.
I haven’t noticed anything about the great exploits of Ukrainian F-16s, how they have been “real game changers” or turned the tide of the war.
The Ukrainians seem disappointed in them:
“Seven months after the deliveries of the first F-16 fourth generation fighters to Ukraine, Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yuri Ignat provided insight into the fighters’ capabilities, stating that they were incapable of engaging the Su-35 ‘4+ generation’ fighters in the Russian Air Force.”
[snip]
“Ukrainian misgivings regarding the F-16’s limitations contrast sharply with the high hopes previously expressed that the aircraft would be a game changer. “When [we] have F-16, we will win this war,” Air Force spokesman Yuri Ignat previously stated in May 2023, highlighting that Western supplied air defence systems, including American Patriot missile systems recently destroyed in Russian air strikes, were insufficient to protect a Ukrainian airspace. “The territory of the country and the length of the state border are big and the frontline … is over 2,500 kilometres [long],” he stated, adding that F-16s could become “a part of the air defences” and be used in areas not covered by the ground based anti air assets.”
Somehow left out the link:
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ukrainian-air-force-laments-f16-cant-compete-russian-su35
The SDB weapon is old.
The 2nd gen of JDAM class stuff of the early 1990s.
And the rocket combo was just a mishmash of surplus components made from parts that were slated for disposition. An attempt to make HIMARS ammo cheap.
Hence my point - we were in NO CONDITION to fight a first-rate military.
Anyway, the Russians are now using fiber optic drones, so the Neocons can kiss goodbye all the expensive jamming hardware.
Er, wrong. Russia had and has nothing to compare vs multiple US systems. Worse, the best US assets are aerial, which could not be applied because of the limited nature of the war, and moreover the US (Biden) chose to fight with one Ukrainian arm tied behind their backs.
Too funny!!! The Neocons are getting SPANKED, BADLY, and all the dreaming of wonder weapons have not changed jack in this war.
Putin wins, easily, and I’m done for the night.
The US has been updating all of our older PGMs with new GPS receivers with M-Code capability. M-Code uses a spot beam that's about 20dB more powerful than legacy GPS, and has other features that make it much more difficult to jam or spoof.
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