Free Republic

Just recently, Raytheon announced that it had finished the work necessary to integrate its AGM-154 Joint Stand-Off Weapon glide bomb, or JSOW, into the internal weapons bays on the U.S. Navy’s F-35C Joint Strike Fighter. It’s an important development, especially given that the service is also developing a powered version with quadruple the range, but half the cost of other available air-launched cruise missiles. Earlier in April 2018, the Massachusetts-headquartered defense contractor declared that the F-35C was fully capable of carrying the AGM-154 internally and that the pairing would now move on to operational testing. The goal is for the...

Israel, Germany developing smart missile for Eurofighter By YAAKOV KATZ 04/07/2011 Air-to-ground missile under joint development by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Germany’s Diehl. Israel and Germany are jointly developing a smart missile that could be sold together with the Eurofighter currently in service worldwide, including in Saudi Arabia. The air-to-ground missile, called PILUM, is under development by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Germany’s Diehl, and is based on Rafael’s Spice missile which has the reported ability to hit targets while aircraft are positioned at a standoff range of 100 kilometers away. The twin-engine Eurofighter is currently in use in...

Picture: Chinese precision-guided gliding bomb revealed A picture has been published of what appears to be a new precision-guided bomb developed by China, possibly under the designation LS-6. The image has been revealed on the Chinese Military Aviation website which says the weapon was first revealed this month and is apparently in the 500kg class. The bomb has what are presumably foldable wings, and cruciform tail surfaces for guidance, giving a possible stand-off range of tens of kiometres depending on launch altitude. Conceptually it closely resembles the US Longshot system used to give precision capability to dumb bombs. It is...