Lockheed Martin AGM-179 JAGM

DWG said:
If you're doing C-UAS defence, there's no guarantee the next drone you need to engage is going to be detected in front of you, particularly if someone's hunting you with an FPV drone and taking advantage of cover to close on you from an unexpected direction . Being able to engage in a 360 degree arc makes you a lot less vulnerable than having a forward-facing launcher and the target popping up behind you.
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Hellfire is far too ponderous and expensive to engage FPVs. On the Sgt. Stout it was primarily going to engage helicopter gunships conducting BLOS fires with weapons like LMUR or fiber optic missiles like Spike. APS isn't quite capable enough either as FPVs are too slow and can just creep up unlike a grenade or missile. A remote weapon station with a high rate of fire machine gun and a VIS-LWIR electro-optical sensor might be good.

As a bonus, it can defend a warship from close in attack, and I believe the British use M134s on railings for that job, no less.

Coyote is fine and good enough. The USN wants to put a HPM inside Coyote apparently which is quite clever if it can be made to work.
 
Kat Tsun said:
Hellfire is far too ponderous and expensive to engage FPVs.
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The vehicle being discussed actually mounted the JAGM vertical launcher, not Hellfire, but the whole question is applicable to any air-defence, C-RAM or C-UAS asset, a turreted launcher takes time to turn to engage a target in an unexpected sector that a VLS launcher doesn't.

Kat Tsun said:
On the Sgt. Stout it was primarily going to engage helicopter gunships conducting BLOS fires with weapons like LMUR or fiber optic missiles like Spike.
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A gunship popping up behind you is just as much a threat as an FPV drone.

Kat Tsun said:
A remote weapon station with a high rate of fire machine gun and a VIS-LWIR electro-optical sensor might be good.
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An RWS still has the facing issue.
Kat Tsun said:
As a bonus, it can defend a warship from close in attack, and I believe the British use M134s on railings for that job, no less.
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I believe the M134s have either been retired or are being retired, with .50s replacing them. However they're only secondary weapons in that role, the primary mountings are the 30mm ASCG (aka the DSI Seahawk in non-RN use) and Phalanx.
 
DWG said:
The vehicle being discussed actually mounted the JAGM vertical launcher, not Hellfire, but the whole question is applicable to any air-defence, C-RAM or C-UAS asset, a turreted launcher takes time to turn to engage a target in an unexpected sector that a VLS launcher doesn't.
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FPVs can be detected well within response time due to how slow they move. The easiest method is acoustic: they're extremely loud like most rotary wing aircraft. The most effective is a high resolution visual camera: they may be fast but they are not that fast. Typical detection ranges are within several tens of meters outside of urban combat, which is multiple meters, and even the latter case is enough to respond for an onboard weapon, whether it's a high speed discharger or a man with a rifle poking his head out a hatch.

They have to, uh, literally fly up to the tank at such a low speed that they don't trigger the APS velocity gate. This is usually fractional meters per second. Roughly walking or jogging speed, usually slower, going by Hamas kill footage. Killing an FPV is essentially the same as killing a suicide bomber as far as a tank is concerned. Similar speed, similar threat, similarly invisible to the APS radar.

Welcome back, Haftholladung.

It's different in Ukraine where FPVs enjoy the incredible luxury of engaging armor without organic self defense measures. There it's more akin to an off route mine and some sort of standoff projector like the Saab Mongoose or Iron Fist would be incredibly valuable. So would a high rate of fire machine gun. Drones would just adapt to engage at slower speeds from closer distances, then, as they have in the Levant.

DWG said:
A gunship popping up behind you is just as much a threat as an FPV drone.
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It's worse actually, but Hellfire isn't well adapted to the air defense role, as trucks are too bumpy and dirty for them.

DWG said:
An RWS still has the facing issue.
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It can spin quickly and you can mount several of them under robotic control. It's no worse than any number of swivel launchers for APS.
 
Kat Tsun said:
It's different in Ukraine where FPVs enjoy the incredible luxury of engaging armor without organic self defense measures.
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It's not an 'incredible luxury', it's situation normal in most areas of the world for the moment, and a Lancet in its terminal dive is closing at 300kmh/83mps.
 
Hellfire/JAGM is a terrible choice for shooting at air targets in general. Too slow, and apparently has a lousy ability to gain elevation.


DWG said:
It's not an 'incredible luxury', it's situation normal in most areas of the world for the moment, and a Lancet in its terminal dive is closing at 300kmh/83mps.
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Then you know what speed gate to set your APS for.
 
DWG said:
When you don't have one? "It's not an 'incredible luxury', it's situation normal in most areas of the world "
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Then your government is too effing stupid to be allowed to maintain a nation-state if they're not buying APS for all their armored vehicles.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Then your government is too effing stupid to be allowed to maintain a nation-state if they're not buying APS for all their armored vehicles.
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What percentage of vehicles does the US currently have APS fitted to?
 
Scott Kenny said:
Around 300 Trophy systems on Abrams, and you're making my point for me.
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Outside that relatively small number and IDF, does *anyone* widely employ an APS? And would APS really be all that effective in an Ukraine like environment, given the sheer numbers involved? IMO, defending individual vehicles is an incredibly expensive way of staying left of boom, and ultimately the side that wins the drone wars will be the one that can identify opposing drone coordination and deployment centers of gravity more effectively/quicker.
 
Josh_TN said:
Outside that relatively small number and IDF, does *anyone* widely employ an APS?
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Korea might be working on/fielding a decent number of APS.

Thing is, if I understand things right now, those ~300 sep2 and sep3 Abrams with Trophy are the pointy end of the spear. That is roughly 1/3 of the entire Abrams force. Yep. You read that correctly. There are roughly 65 Abrams Companies in the entire US Army, that's it. 65x14=910 Abrams in use.

Plus that number of Trophy units is set to more than double by next year.

So the US is actually doing pretty well in terms of getting every Abrams a Trophy system, but we also gotta fit them to Bradleys.


Josh_TN said:
And would APS really be all that effective in an Ukraine like environment, given the sheer numbers involved? IMO, defending individual vehicles is an incredibly expensive way of staying left of boom, and ultimately the side that wins the drone wars will be the one that can identify opposing drone coordination and deployment centers of gravity more effectively/quicker.
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It's also not politically viable to not have a defense on every vehicle. See also the proliferation of .50BMGs everywhere in WW2 and beyond.
 
Scott Kenny said:
It's also not politically viable to not have a defense on every vehicle. See also the proliferation of .50BMGs everywhere in WW2 and beyond.
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I think that is an incredibly inaccurate comparison. Having a heavy MG is not remotely the same as something that is arguably a radar directed AD system. It’s more like if every Cold War tank had a Vulcan 20mm on the roof.
 
TomS said:
Interestingly, the image published along with this article about a "vertical" launch is distinctly non-vertical.
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The launcher is capable of supporting a range of launch angles.
Sferrin said:
If you're shooting down drones with JAGM you've already lost the cost war.
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JAGM is an in-inventory weapon for joint force. Its available now. If there's a plug-play launcher solution that can dial into AEGIS, or a land based Navy/Marine, or Army radar and C2, its something that they can move out on very quickly. Think adding it to Carrier strike groups now so that they can deploy with the launcher and weapons in a year or two. Army can likewise put a JAGM based solution on containers (Grizzly) and ship them out to CENTCOM and INDOPACOM fixed/semi-fixed sites. Even at $200-250K per shot, the JAGM is at least half the cost of the Army's AIM-9X, and 4-5x cheaper than the Navy's ESSM. Its also cheaper than new build Stingers and much cheaper than the Stinger replacement (which won't be available till 2030). While cost-exchange-ratios are important, you ideally want to use those cheaper weapons like APKWS at stand off, farther away from troops or infrastructure while allowing for more flexibility and being less sensitivity to interceptor cost for last-mile point defense given force protection etc.

While the Coyote block 2C is great and half the cost of JAGM, it is going to struggle against more advanced threats especially the faster Group 3 OWA and other drones that are in the works. For that, the DOD is developing the next generation CUAS weapon with a 20+ km stand off range against group 3 OWA drones. But that will likely not hit full rate production until 2030 at the earliest so it will take some time to build inventories. HF and/or JAGM can fill the gap till then. JAGM's annual production rate is still more than the Coyote 2C until the Coyote catches up by the end of the year.
 
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https://www.defensenews.com/news/yo...seeks-8000-new-short-range-missiles-per-year/
https://defence-blog.com/u-s-army-seeks-new-short-range-missile-similar-to-jagm-hellfire/
US Army seeks 8,000 new short-range missiles per year

The Army is looking for a weapon that is similar to the existing Hellfire and Joint Air-to-Ground Missile, according to the Army’s Sources Sought notice. The deadline is Sept. 15.

The missile should be “capable of integrating with joint manned and unmanned air, ground and waterborne platforms using a M299 launcher or equivalent,” the Army said.

The specifications for the missile mirror that of the Hellfire, with a minimum range of 1,640 feet (500 meters) and a maximum range of 2,6246 feet (8,000 meters) or greater. Potential targets include “heavy/light armor track vehicles, command and control nodes, air defense artillery radars, Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS), [and] small fast attack maritime targets,” according to the notice.

The missile should be capable of operating amid jamming and GPS denial. Contractors “must provide technology and performance details on seeker sensors, warhead and propulsion solution.”
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