Everything you wanted to know about the Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod

Lockheed Martin released a promo video of their Sniper pod yesterday. It gives a detailed look at some of the capabilities the pod delivers as well as some of the iner working of the pod itself:

Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod (ATP) is the most widely deployed targeting system for fixed-wing aircraft in use by U.S. forces and is also the targeting system of choice for many international allies across multiple platforms. Sniper ATP provides pilots high-resolution imagery for precision targeting and non-traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. It detects, identifies, automatically tracks and laser-designates small tactical targets at long ranges and supports employment of laser- and GPS-guided weapons against multiple fixed and moving targets.

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That is simply amazing! One definitely does not want to be a target of this technology.

It seemed like the majority of the footage was taken over American suburbia.

Maybe not, but...sure seemed like it.

a reply to: Seamrog

They test and train over suburbia all the time. There was a video a couple of years ago where a B-52 "bombed" a house in the middle of a neighborhood. They have to be able to pick out specific buildings in the middle of other buildings, and the only way to test that is to actually do it.

We used to fly over Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Wisconsin with Litening targeting pods all the time. Pilots need to know how to do their jobs.

a reply to: Sammamishman

When I got to have FLIR demonstrated to me, one of the things they told us was that they couldn't turn on the laser, because about half the time they did, the pod broke. Nice to see they appear to have fixed that problem.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah, that could be worrisome. Have a laser go dark just after a bomb is released and on it's way down.

a reply to: Sammamishman

This was when they had one pod for targeting, and one pod for lasers. They hated the laser pods because they were seriously maintenance intensive.