Lockheed Martin AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM)

Josh_TN said:
AIM-260 pretty clearly is more than just a range increase. I suspect it also shortens time of flight out to a given range, increases kinetic performance and maneuvering across all ranges, and has a very sophisticated guidance and fusing system to maximize lethality against a broader collection of target types and velocities. Probably the warhead is non standard too, either something like the PAC3 lethality enhancer mentioned up threat (small charge with a handful of large oblong shrapnel objects from what I understand) or something 3D printed where precise fragment sizes and geometry are printed as a single casing that can accept an HE filler.
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If I was designing a modern missile, decreasing time to active would be extremely high on my list.
 
TomcatViP said:
Probably that F-35 doesn´t need a long range expensive missile to score a kill.
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Integration could happen decades down the line, missiles are not always immediately adopted across an entire air force. And the F-35 is primarily a strike fighter anyway. While the F-22 as a dedicated air superiority fighter would benefit greatly from it, especially as it's meant to also operate with unmanned platforms. The upgraded F-22 is meant to go head to head with the J-20 and the J-20A/S, which also boast manned/unmanned teaming and the PL-15 as well as the 'PL-16' (successor to the PL-15).

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that the F-22 is prioritized. While the F/A-18E/F follows much of the same logic, just transferred over to the Navy, albeit not being an air superiority fighter.
 
I very much doubt that the Raptor will be detected by any J-20 at PL-15/16 stated range. Idem for the F-35. Hence, the priority for conventional platforms is straightforward to understand.
A long range missile for a VLO Air dominance fighter is just needed to reach targets without having to lose fuel to actually go there closing-in or to get after hyper velocity targets (ballistic missiles, Supersonic/hypersonic threats). It would be interesting to see how this capability is integrated in the missile.
 
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Maybe not by the J-20 itself, but you think aerial warfare is a medieval joust. When there are possibly hundreds of unmanned aircraft zooming around, all with their own set of sensors, including radar and thermal sensors, as well as various other means of establishing situational awareness over long ranges (like land based, sea based and air based early warning radars, to a degree space based assets as well). The F-22 in a WESTPAC scenario is on the backfoot anyway, from the very beginning. So giving the top of the line, frontline, air superiority stealth fighter the sharpest tool in the shed so to speak makes a lot of sense and was most likely in part why this decision was made. F-15s, even with AIM-260 would probably not even make it to missile launch. It provides the F-22 with the maximum engagement range it could achieve against a multitude of targets, which in turn translates into not having to venture too deeply into the...danger zone itself.

While the F/A-18E/F has to make due for the Navy and will still benefit from it, being able to harass MPAs, AEW&C and ASW assets at long ranges. Obviously they will have to put up with PL-15 equipped J-15Ts and the J-35. But as the USAF are not planned to integrate the AIM-260 as of now, you can imagine that the USN won't pay for the integration program for their F-35Cs. Thus the Navy has to put them on their F/A-18E/FS.
 
TomcatViP said:
I very much doubt that the Raptor will be detected by any J-20 at PL-15/16 stated range. Idem for the F-35. Hence, the priority for conventional platforms is straightforward to understand.
A long range missile for a VLO Air dominance fighter is just needed to reach targets without having to lose fuel to actually go there closing-in or to get after hyper velocity targets (ballistic missiles, Supersonic/hypersonic threats). It would be interesting to see how this capability is integrated in the missile.
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Anything that increases lethality and survivability is a welcome addition, whether the carrier is LO or not.
 
Guys, help me out here...
There were digital photos of AIM260 floating Around of it being 2 stage. The second stage being a dart. It has 4 control surfaces. Possible side thrusters, but not sure. Wouldn't this design be better than what AIM260 ended up being? I mean, if you jettison all the spent motor, wouldn't it go further, and turn better?
Approximately:
L=3.8m (2.5m motor + 1.3m second stage)
 
Edwoooo said:
Guys, help me out here...
There were digital photos of AIM260 floating Around of it being 2 stage. The second stage being a dart. It has 4 control surfaces. Possible side thrusters, but not sure. Wouldn't this design be better than what AIM260 ended up being? I mean, if you jettison all the spent motor, wouldn't it go further, and turn better?
Approximately:
L=3.8m (2.5m motor + 1.3m second stage)
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interesting.
but what a long missile to carry.
 
Sferrin said:
Barely longer than AIM-120 or ESSM. (But wouldn't surprise me if it was too long for the F-22s bays.)
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nah, the AIM 260 was developed to fit in a F22 bay(not sure abt F35) and future NGAD bay as well. No way they dont fit.
 
lmaoxd said:
nah, the AIM 260 was developed to fit in a F22 bay(not sure abt F35) and future NGAD bay as well. No way they dont fit.
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This is what I was replying to:

Edwoooo said:
Guys, help me out here...
There were digital photos of AIM260 floating Around of it being 2 stage. The second stage being a dart. It has 4 control surfaces. Possible side thrusters, but not sure. Wouldn't this design be better than what AIM260 ended up being? I mean, if you jettison all the spent motor, wouldn't it go further, and turn better?
Approximately:
L=3.8m (2.5m motor + 1.3m second stage)
 
Sferrin said:
This is what I was replying to:

Edwoooo said:
Guys, help me out here...
There were digital photos of AIM260 floating Around of it being 2 stage. The second stage being a dart. It has 4 control surfaces. Possible side thrusters, but not sure. Wouldn't this design be better than what AIM260 ended up being? I mean, if you jettison all the spent motor, wouldn't it go further, and turn better?
Approximately:
L=3.8m (2.5m motor + 1.3m second stage)
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How did you calculate the length out of interest? If Scott's right you only need to be out by 4% to match his 3.65m. Thx.
 
Edwoooo said:
Guys, help me out here...
There were digital photos of AIM260 floating Around of it being 2 stage. The second stage being a dart. It has 4 control surfaces. Possible side thrusters, but not sure. Wouldn't this design be better than what AIM260 ended up being? I mean, if you jettison all the spent motor, wouldn't it go further, and turn better?
Approximately:
L=3.8m (2.5m motor + 1.3m second stage)
Click to expand...

There was quite a bit of confusion between JATM and the Long-Range Engagement Weapon (LREW) early on. There have been LREW concept drawings and models showing a two-stage weapon, though I'm not sure if any are actually representative of a real concept or just placeholders.
 
AIM260 is unlikely to have multi stages for the range it's required for.
The other existing concepts are due to the need for half-AMRAAM size as well as the desire for modularity, hence, leveraging mass production, too.

I do expect beyond AIM260 range requirement to need multistages for similar modular reason like the difference between internal and eternal carriage. And for extreme long ranges (1000 - 1500 km) it's likely to have a smaller sub caliber vehicle which would make it possible to engage even fighters. I suspect the chinese might be using something like this for PL16 and beyond.
 
Seragina said:
AIM260 is unlikely to have multi stages for the range it's required for.
The other existing concepts are due to the need for half-AMRAAM size as well as the desire for modularity, hence, leveraging mass production, too.

I do expect beyond AIM260 range requirement to need multistages for similar modular reason like the difference between internal and eternal carriage. And for extreme long ranges (1000 - 1500 km) it's likely to have a smaller sub caliber vehicle which would make it possible to engage even fighters. I suspect the chinese might be using something like this for PL16 and beyond.
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I think some wires got crossed. Are you suggesting an AIM-260 sized missile, or variant, with a 1500km range?
 
AIM-260 likely looks like this (bottom wingless missile, top is AIM-120 for scale)

screenshot-2023-02-21-015503-png.702800

General accuracy seems confirmed by this
jatm-dod-graphics-png.760744
 
Sferrin said:
I think some wires got crossed. Are you suggesting an AIM-260 sized missile, or variant, with a 1500km range?
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Ofc not. its L/D ratio is already to the limit. A longer range missile has to have a larger diameter unless we get another revolutionary heavy loaded grain with at least 50% improvement.
 
Seragina said:
Ofc not. its L/D ratio is already to the limit. A longer range missile has to have a larger diameter unless we get another revolutionary heavy loaded grain with at least 50% improvement.
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states 1.5x increase in range which isnt the same as impulse but its being worked on. and aim260 has about 35% more fuel compared to aim120 assuming the same diameter
 
JJPET said:

states 1.5x increase in range which isnt the same as impulse but its being worked on. and aim260 has about 35% more fuel compared to aim120 assuming the same diameter
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I'm asuming the AIM260 is already using all these improvement.
No I'm talking about squezzing an amount of energy worth that is found in Israel's (Blue) Sparrow ballistic missile.
Due to time critical reasons I assume hypersonic cruise performance would be desired and that could raise energy or fuel fraction requirement.
 
That Australian offer of 485 missiles (35 being test articles) for 2.61 billion works out to $5.38 million per missile, assuming test ones are of similar value. Of course, that's an export contract. One would imagine USAF and USN are paying somewhat less per missile. And given that it's still fairly early and production lots are still fairly small, there should be some more room for the final price tag to go down, in the near future. So 2-3 million might be realistic, some day. Amraam seems to cost USAF 1.5 to 1.6 million per missile, nowadays.
 
I still think a second stage dart design would have been better. Maybe a 6 inch diameter with a Ka-band AESA seeker. With such maneuverability, the warhead could be even smaller. Essentially it would be a hit-to-kill second stage. It could even be helpful against ballistic missile defense. But I'm not an expert.
 
Edwoooo said:
I still think a second stage dart design would have been better. Maybe a 6 inch diameter with a Ka-band AESA seeker. With such maneuverability, the warhead could be even smaller. Essentially it would be a hit-to-kill second stage. It could even be helpful against ballistic missile defense. But I'm not an expert.
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From earlier in the thread:

Captureaaa.PNG

Or you could do what they did in DCS. Looks like they modified the one above to a 7" dia. (Both the one above and the one below have side thrusters for the KV.)

01.jpg.657d7e04e72cae9a5e49d00f1d037d10.jpg

02.jpg.250c4ad12c7f12bda8d035ca346b5b5e.jpg
 
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wow, that's it... the one in the second photo. This missile makes a lot of sense. It looks like a hit to kill missile. Imagine the surface to air variant of this design. It probably can handle some of the anti hypersonic work load of the Patriot system. In air to air realm it will have a better range and better kill probability. It can also serve as the basis for airborne anti-ballistic missile defense, and as a SAM system I can imagine large loadout to handle swarms of missiles like the MLRS, Iskandar missiles, even hypersonic missile. With an AESA Ka seeker, side thrusters, it will be able to handle hypersonic/ballistic missiles. It can also quad-pack Aegis ships. What do you think guys? Am I making too much of it?
Sferrin said:
From earlier in the thread:

View attachment 808510

Or you could do what they did in DCS. Looks like they modified the one above to a 7" dia. (Both the one above and the one below have side thrusters for the KV.)

View attachment 808513

View attachment 808514
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lmaoxd said:
nah, the AIM 260 was developed to fit in a F22 bay(not sure abt F35) and future NGAD bay as well. No way they dont fit.
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AARGM-ER/AGM-88G wasnt confirmed to fit inside F-35s bays? And its a big missile, 4.06m long and 292mm wide
 
AARGM-ER is definitely designed for internal F-35C carriage, and presumably the A as well. In fact I believe the USAF made a small purchase as a stop gap to SiAM introduction.
 
www.naval-technology.com

AGM-88G Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range, US

The AGM-88G Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range (AARGM-ER) is a supersonic, air-launched tactical missile system developed by Northrop Grumman, a defence technology company based in the US.
www.naval-technology.com www.naval-technology.com
This article says both F-35A and C can carry it internally

wonder if they could make an air to air version of it for Stealthies, AIM-174B like, reducing the weight of warhead and using guidance systems of 120D-3 or 260, with a bigger battery... could work, who knows...
 
I thought AARGM-ER's dimensions exceeds the F-35's bays now and that's what SiAW is for? Is there any definite recent confirmation that they fit.
 
Sferrin said:
What's special about it? What are they using that isn't your typical HTPB / AP & spices?
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Nothing in particular. I choose it for the range and for a simplified energy comparison for ease of imagination of what's "needed".
Because I left the size open, I used the fundamental work-energy theorem for motion as a simple energy-distance comparision rather than what's actually which would involve drag, exo-atmospheric flight, related gravity changes, atmospheric skimming, launch position, Earth's rotation etc.

So let's go a bit into the "detail" to show you why I did they way I did.
The goal is to answer how an (AIM120/260) airframe could get to 1500 km range. Let's assume the AIM120/260 missiles have the exact same airframe and we only look at the motor.

The chinese determined the AIM260's range to be 260 km while us nerds set the limit to 300 km. Since it all depends on launch condition it's debateable. We ignore the finer details for simplicity of calculations.

In my energy-distance eyeballing I'll say from 300 km to 1500 km requires 5x the energy.

Now, a lot of people like the Breguet equation for range. See here
Code: 
R = (V/TSFC) × (L/D) × ln(W₀/W₁)
Everything being equal we look at the fuel fraction ln(W₀/W₁).
Assuming the AIM120D has a fuel fraction of 60% (rounded) and 180 km this tells us a fuel fraction of ~91% will give us ~5x the powered range endurance improvement.
91% over 60% happens to be ~1.5x the fuel. So logically the AIM260 with the new heavy loaded grain with 1.5x improvement and with thrust and specific fuel consumption (SFC) being the same we would be able to get ~5x range (kind of) without compromising other component volume sizes & weights.
But apparently this is not the case as 260 km / 180 km = 1._4_x. Although, we can assume both missile have almost identical ballistics paths (due to similar speeds between Mach 4 and Mach 5) the Breguet equation fails us here.
As you can see we are back to the most fundamental law of work & motion in physics, hence, despite everything the ideal solution is almost a linear case of (potential) energy.
You will get the same result with the rocket equation (in vaccuum) for powered range (no coasting) regardless of time or speed.

That's why to get to the desired range more than just energetic grain improvement only an appropriate amount of propellant is needed. And this calls for a larger missile body.

As for multistages we would have to consider individual aerodynamics and fuel fraction of the different section combination or configurations. Regarding the kill vehicle simply put using an analogy from gun bullets a heavier bullet has better balistics while a lighter bullet falls off faster. To counter this (aside from not having a separate kill vehicle) alternatively the vehicle has to be a sub-caliber or a sub-munition preferable both being full scale missiles.
I'll stop here since this is already too deep and off-topic.
 

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