Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM)

www.liveleak.com...


This missile astounds me, look at the accuracy, fired from a jet it manages to enter the compound through the opening in the wall.

Now thats smart munitions.

It's even better than that. It has a lot of stealth built into it, along with a couple hundred mile standoff range. Never see it comming.

Cool video. My dad brings back one's like these from the States all the time. I pull his leg when some of the munitions land about 6 feet from the target. Hardly precision, I jest... Still blows the crap out of whatever it was though

A sidethought makes me wonder if they could change the accronym.

JASSM, now that just sounds rude.....

In general it's a very mediocre design.

Yes, it provides stealth but only at a weight penalty which rivals that of GBU-31 JDAM and a drag penalty which is about 1.5X as much as our largest ballistic munition.

Note how that F-16 just /rocks to beat hell/ when the weapon comes off. Not a good airframerdnance matchup there.

LO is nice but only to the extent that you don't throw it away on cheap targets (even direct impacts with full warhead functionality often leaves amazingly large chunks of Tomahawk airframe and engine behind).

The real utility of the JASSM is in it's ability to revitalize the utility of the bomber fleet so that 'if not when' enemy-X pulls the coalition effect on a dual-hemisphere war strategy (justifying their actions by the weight of a global massed threat), we can send tacair to the hotspot and bomberair to hold the line at the less intense troublezone. Or vice versa, depending on available basing rights.

In this, you almost have to go with the AGM-158B with a 600nm range upgrade if you are going to do anything with ultra high value assets like bombers (which are so threatened as to require stealthy munitions). And even then you are limited in your ability to target on the fly because the munition will have the same speed and probably less LO capabilties than the bomber it leaves.

This gets tricky when you have a spot track on a TBM TEL or Feyadin meeting at Hut-X. Where you need to have assets _on station_ to react before the enemy moves out. And you MUST have certainty of not merely accurate targeting but also minimum collaterals.

Here too, the JASSM supposedly has an edge, given it's targeting sensor can also act as a terminal ISR aid but the round cost of nearly 799,000 dollars (FY 2007 authorization for 234 missiles at 187 million) and the short loiter on only '200nm' worth of range places you in a position where you either have to launch closer in. Or accept next to no loiter on a weapon which you just _cannot_ throw away on random launches.

Given that there are only about 400 in the inventory these are systems which would primarily be used against targets like China where the depth and forward presence of the IADS all but assures bombers wouldn't be safe. And fighters would not be able to plus-up shot counts for fuel tanks because the weapon standoff doesn't add enough to their radius to be worth it.

CONCLUSION:
In the end, the JASSM is a weapon looking for a funding line as much as mission. The weapon we NEED is a cheap, high energy, 'FRSW' or Future Rapid Standoff Weapon which puts 100-200lb penetrator warheads 350-400nm down range at Mach 5-8 using conventional motor and airframe technology. Preferrably a minimum of four per airframe from combined fuel/munition (low drag) pylon encapsulates.

An inertial-HARM package with smaller fins and a slightly different forebody (bulged and ceramo-carboned for lofted Mach performance) would suffice.

Do this and you don't really need to worry about tactical penetration. Do this and you actually have a chance of responding to TCT popups. Do this and you will halve your raid coordination factors. Do this and much of the coming-soon problem inherent to DEWS and hunting S2A will go away or be saturateable.

Do this and you STILL have to solve for overhead realtime targeting problem. But at least you will have the cash available to do so.

Otherwise, while the high altitude capabilities and smart-D/L targeting of the AGM-158 are nice, you just don't get enough out of the combined performance and carriage penalty of JASSM to justify the sortie lag, reduced aimpoint count and overall tactical inflexibility in comparison with a similar (295,000 dollar) capability inherent to Blk.IV Tomahawk. Which is pennies-per-tone-mile alway going to be closer to the problem.


KPl.


P.S. Particularly when evaluating for accuracy and effects, don't trust ANY video which splitscenes between different perspectives. Particularly in this case where the seeker video does NOT line up with the trajectory of the missile which is itself only seen impacting from a different angle than that shown in the initial explosion. It is particularly important to note that the JASSMs hardened warhead could probably achieve the same effect from a terminal roof attack and blast through the 'opening' is merely a path of least resistance aftermath.
You also need to be more critical of the target damage analysis itself.
First, the U.S. military tends to use cheap targets on all but media and 'convince your Congressman' full-up funding critical tests which typically means stacked shipping containers or even corrogated sheeting with dirt fill for most of the program.
Second, it looks as if the building in question was intended to replicate a 2-story structure. If so, while hardly a difficult target (nothing above ground ever is) in and of itself, the resulting blast bubble and material uplift seems to indicate an immediate target area effect at least 5-8X the height of the structure itself and a 2 block 'throw' radius on wall sized debris fragments. None of which is very useful if you are trying to kill targets in a dense urban environment (as even S2A threats now often are imbedded).
The Saddam Hussein attack in a residential home just down the street from a busy market and restaurant comes to mind here as 'why as much as how not to do things'.
Indeed, with the types of thermobaric munitions now available (able to overpressure an interior volume and splatter the living contents across walls) down to the handheld level, the use of 1,000lb warhead classes is itself ludicrous when the same money could buy you 4-5 impacts by smaller weapons, each of which could better penetrate defenses and destroy structures, room by room.
Without every throwing blast or debris outside the building footprint itself.

I certainly wouldn't want to be on the business end of that thing!

Still, it's just so confusing to me why we with ali this stuff are confounded by a handful of stone age thugs in Iraq...I think we need to be doing more on human intelligence than spending like crazy on technology. The technology is useless unless you have a target!

[edit on 3/4/2007 by djohnsto77]

I agree wholeheartedly with ch1466. You can never be sure about these cut screen videos, especially in the case of that film clip. In the final shot, I found myself wondering where the guidance lines were. At least the ever so humble Maverick has a telly so you can watch the final moments.

As to the airframe 'wobbling' as the ordnance dropps free, all aircraft react in that way - it's a combinating of loss of weight - causing the aircraft to rise slightly [watch old filmclips of B17s, Lancs or B52s], and turbulance caused as the weapon interrupts airflow allbeit, momentarily.

New video out from LockMart:

www.aviationweek.com...