StandOff & PGM Weapons

That is some shopping spree for The Netherlands, JASSM-ER, PULS MLRS and Tomahawks. One question that I have is how many JASSM-ER are they expected to buy?
 
The Dutch have announced they are buying JASSM-ER for their F-35's, PULS MLRS for the army and Tomahawks for the navy.

In Dutch
Some reporting on same in English:

 
That is some shopping spree for The Netherlands, JASSM-ER, PULS MLRS and Tomahawks. One question that I have is how many JASSM-ER are they expected to buy?
-The 'Deep Strike Capacity, Air' (JASSM-ER) project is expected to cost between €250 million and €1 billion. The budget is made up of investments, a risk reserve and operating costs for the next fifteen years

If previous DSCA sales are any indication it should between 80-250 purchased

 
It will be interesting to see if it turns out to be the higher figure for JASSMs bought for The Netherlands.
 
@FighterJock
More about the UAE standoff weapons, they also have the Nasef ground and air launched cruise missile. It’s claimed to be “low cost” but that could mean a bunch of things.

Range is 90km launched from ground and 120km launched from air and it has a 50kg warhead and with total weight 100kg without booster.

Guidance currently is GNSS+SAL but an engineer associated with EDGE said it will receive a infrared seeker in the future in February.

20211115_122112-scaled.jpg


Surprisingly they are actually trying to develop indigenous turbojets and turbofans for these programs which means that range limitations would be moot for missiles like the Saber I mentioned earlier. They could achieve missiles like the JASSM-ER without having to worry about MTCR limitations.
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The Russian's have started putting wing kits on their bombs and gliding them in from 50-70km. This is allowing them to drop off outside of Ukrainian AD range which is causing some consternation for the Ukrainians who lack point defence counters. Supposedly GPS (GLONASS?) guided.

20230411_113046.jpg

20230411_115919.png
 
That glide bomb kit was based on FAB-500-M62 low drag bomb. If the range figure is correct then it shows some decent Lift to Drag ratio. About in order of 7 assuming drop altitude of 10000 meter.
 
I don't see any data cable connecting bomb/kit to the plane. Is it can only be set by ground crew?
 
I don't see any data cable connecting bomb/kit to the plane. Is it can only be set by ground crew?
we haven't seen how the actual thing looks (only remains of wing - which isn't the same wing we see here).
The thing on photo, as far as we know, is only a crude development prototype.
 
That is a pity Forest Green, I would have thought that the UAE would have designed a hypersonic missile? But I suppose that they will be looking into that field later on once that the Saber enters service in large numbers.

No else has an air launched hypersonic air breathing missile; I can’t imagine the UAE even has research in this field. I’m impressed they can put together a JASSM clone.

They had/have a large amount of South African technical help and expertise...
 
@FighterJock
More about the UAE standoff weapons, they also have the Nasef ground and air launched cruise missile. It’s claimed to be “low cost” but that could mean a bunch of things.

Range is 90km launched from ground and 120km launched from air and it has a 50kg warhead and with total weight 100kg without booster.

Guidance currently is GNSS+SAL but an engineer associated with EDGE said it will receive a infrared seeker in the future in February.

20211115_122112-scaled.jpg


Surprisingly they are actually trying to develop indigenous turbojets and turbofans for these programs which means that range limitations would be moot for missiles like the Saber I mentioned earlier. They could achieve missiles like the JASSM-ER without having to worry about MTCR limitations.
View attachment 697245

It's a range of South African designed mini turbojets which they are using (they paid for most of the IP). They have also poached a large amount of South African Denel Dynamics employees to go work for them in the UAE (can't blame them though - Denel was fairly behind on paying them their monthly salaries...). They also poached some South African CSIR engineers, who were specifically working on the Turbojet projects - the results of which can be seen in the picture at a previous IDEX show below the link.



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@Graugrun
You’re right, but also they have been sending Emirati national engineers overseas to study in Western universities in gas turbine mechanics. I’m sure in the next 5-10 years they will be able to design a turbojet in house without relying on South Africans.

Their propulsion team isn’t huge but it probably has at least 10-20 Emirati national engineers with as well as other foreign national junior engineers and South African senior engineers involved at the very top. I’m not sure the mix between Gas turbine and rocket propulsion but they are working on both.

They’ve done something really smart, and instead of just letting South Africans make everything they have their own engineers learning from bright minds.

Also sending engineers to Turkish institutions to study rocket propellant production.

 
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@tyrin

Yes - you are correct - I'm just highlighting that many of their current offerings are actually South African designs. Our current totally inept and corrupt government just doesn't have neither the funds nor inclination to fully fund the development and production of these and many other weapons, so Denel and other defence industries in South Africa were forced to find other avenues of funds for such.

Some of their UAV offerings are also South African designs.

This article explains some of the different South African weapons developments that are being sold by the UAE Edge/Halcon/Al-Tariq groups - IIRC the Al-Tariq company is a joint venture with Denel (51-49%). They are being a little polite in this article, all these weapons were complete South African designs and developed. they may well have had UAE money to complete/assist in that development, but all the experties etc is definately South African.

https://www.defenceweb.co.za/featured/multiple-new-guided-munitions-orders-for-edge/

There is also their SkyKnight missile which was completely developed in South Africa at the behest (and payment) of Germany's Rheinmetall Group (as the 'Cheetah' low cost C-RAM missile). It's actually a further development of Denel's Mongoose 3 active protection missile for armoured vehicles. The entire group of Cheetah developmental engineers moved over recently to the Edge group.
 
@Graugrun
I was aware of most of this in detail but I’m wondering about the drones. Which drones are you speaking about?

Oh and EDGE also contracts Incomar for consulting work.
 
The problems with the JDAMs were kept hidden, including their poor detonation rate. The JDAM relies heavily on GPS signals, these signals override any IMU information, which explains why spoofing the satellite communications can cause the bombs to veer off course.

 
Once released from the aircraft, the JDAM autonomously navigates to the designated target coordinates. Target coordinates can be loaded into the aircraft before takeoff, manually altered by the aircrew before weapon release, or automatically entered through target designation with onboard aircraft sensors. In its most accurate mode, the JDAM system will provide a weapon circular error probable of 5 meters or less during free flight when GPS data is available. If GPS data is denied, the JDAM will achieve a 30-meter CEP or less for free flight times up to 100 seconds with a GPS quality handoff from the aircraft.
 
Once released from the aircraft, the JDAM autonomously navigates to the designated target coordinates. Target coordinates can be loaded into the aircraft before takeoff, manually altered by the aircrew before weapon release, or automatically entered through target designation with onboard aircraft sensors. In its most accurate mode, the JDAM system will provide a weapon circular error probable of 5 meters or less during free flight when GPS data is available. If GPS data is denied, the JDAM will achieve a 30-meter CEP or less for free flight times up to 100 seconds with a GPS quality handoff from the aircraft.
30 meters may not be accurate enough even with large bombs.
 
@Graugrun
I was aware of most of this in detail but I’m wondering about the drones. Which drones are you speaking about?

Oh and EDGE also contracts Incomar for consulting work.


This one is confirmed - https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...types-projects-concepts-etc.23149/post-351028
Yeah I forgot, the odd thing about that drone was they imported a lot of parts from Serbia for drone that including the seeker and warhead. A lot of intersection in the defense industry.
 
Once released from the aircraft, the JDAM autonomously navigates to the designated target coordinates. Target coordinates can be loaded into the aircraft before takeoff, manually altered by the aircrew before weapon release, or automatically entered through target designation with onboard aircraft sensors. In its most accurate mode, the JDAM system will provide a weapon circular error probable of 5 meters or less during free flight when GPS data is available. If GPS data is denied, the JDAM will achieve a 30-meter CEP or less for free flight times up to 100 seconds with a GPS quality handoff from the aircraft.
30 meters may not be accurate enough even with large bombs.
Russian GPS jamming will only be effective in the last few km of flight. It will get decent GPS data at launch and will continue to receive data on the way to the target.

Basically its unlikely the CEP will veer that much off target, they might get a CEP of 15 metres...which for a 500/1000lb bomb is close enough....Russian GPS jammers are also exceptionally rare and high value. They're not going to be within 20km of the front (if that, their effect will drop away as distance and terrain gets in the way), and given what we know about Ukrainian use of JDAM/JDAM-ER and the way their aircraft will have to release it (i.e low and fast from a pop-up loft profile) they're not going to be targeting much beyond 10-15 km of the front line....
 
Once released from the aircraft, the JDAM autonomously navigates to the designated target coordinates. Target coordinates can be loaded into the aircraft before takeoff, manually altered by the aircrew before weapon release, or automatically entered through target designation with onboard aircraft sensors. In its most accurate mode, the JDAM system will provide a weapon circular error probable of 5 meters or less during free flight when GPS data is available. If GPS data is denied, the JDAM will achieve a 30-meter CEP or less for free flight times up to 100 seconds with a GPS quality handoff from the aircraft.
30 meters may not be accurate enough even with large bombs.
Russian GPS jamming will only be effective in the last few km of flight. It will get decent GPS data at launch and will continue to receive data on the way to the target.

Basically its unlikely the CEP will veer that much off target, they might get a CEP of 15 metres...which for a 500/1000lb bomb is close enough....Russian GPS jammers are also exceptionally rare and high value. They're not going to be within 20km of the front (if that, their effect will drop away as distance and terrain gets in the way), and given what we know about Ukrainian use of JDAM/JDAM-ER and the way their aircraft will have to release it (i.e low and fast from a pop-up loft profile) they're not going to be targeting much beyond 10-15 km of the front line....
I get the feeling that the speak of Russians effectively jamming the GPS guidance of GMLRS and JDAM going on in some (mostly American) mass media based on anonymous Ukrainian sources is a Ukrainian ploy intended to make Russians place and actively use their limited number of jammers next to strategic targets, thus both allowing the Ukrainian military intelligence to narrow down their search and making the jammers very vulnerable to attacks by AGM-88 HARM or other precision weapons.
 

Interesting direction. The USAF seems to going a different route where it wants to network a large number of effectors and use their inherent sensors, but having dedicated sensor type platforms would probably ease development and allow for much more capable seekers.
 
Does NG advertise this as having any capability against sea skimming missiles? Also it isn't clear to me how the projectile maneuvers.
“The aft manoeuvre system” whatever that entails
 

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