Posted on 02/20/2009 12:36:37 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
US Navy's SLAM ER turns corner on mobile targets
By Stephen Trimble
Boeing's AGM-84H SLAM-ER missile has demonstrated a new ability to strike mobile, land-based targets, such as missile launchers, using targeting data supplied by a third party.
The missile on 12 January acquired and scored a direct hit against a target moving at about 10kt (19km/h) amid a "cluttered desert environment".
Boeing released few details about the test conditions, but US Navy officials previously described plans to engage a moving ground target as it turned along a 90° bend in the road.
The target was first acquired by an aircraft equipped with the Littoral Radar Surveillance System (LSRS), a ground moving target indicator sensor installed aboard at least seven US Navy P-3Cs.
The LSRS passed the targeting data to a Boeing F/A-18F, which relayed the information to a second F/A-18F that fired the missile.
The USN-funded test capped a four-part series of demonstrations that stretched over two years. The capability will become operational "as soon as they finish going over test results", Boeing says.
Striking a mobile land target as it makes a sharp turn marks a new level of achievement in the US munitions community's 40-year campaign to design ever-increasing levels of precision into stand-off weapons.
The SLAM-ER had been due for retirement as late as 2003, but the USN's decision to drop out of the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile programme kept the weapon in the inventory.
The USN began experimenting with SLAM-ER against mobile land targets in the late 1990s. Early tests involved firing the SLAM-ER from a modified Lockheed Martin NP-3C nicknamed Hairy Buffalo.
Not to fear, zer0 will kill it.
Hopefully, it flys on the Upcoming P-8 but Obama may kill that program too.
Of the $1 trillion I don’t think a penny went to defense.
LOL wait till you see the Defense cuts he has in store.... 25 percent coming out of the DOD budget for sure. Retirees Tricare healthcare will be reverted to some crazy national health care system.
When that happens I will begin counseling all of the young sailors and Marines that I work with that staying for a military Carrer is simply not worth the investment.
Darn. Pic looks very cool, but link does not work for me.
That works, thank you. With the high regard for life shown by islamic terrorists, I could see them going for something like this if they had the brain power to make it operational.
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