MacDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. – But is it a missile or a drone? The requirements for the Stand-Off Precision Guided Weapon Program cruise missile seem almost contradictory: a cruise missile with long-range, yet tiny enough to fit into a small launch tube. The Drive reports. Continue reading original article
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
16 Sept. 2021 -- U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., is seeking a precision-guided smart munition with a range of at least 200 nautical miles, and ideally a range of more than 400 nautical miles. This would enable SOCOM aircraft like AC-130J Ghostrider gunships to strike targets while remaining safely out of range of hostile air defenses.
The missile needs the ability to carry at least a 13-pound warhead, slightly smaller than that of many Hellfire variants. At the same time, SOCOM officials say they want designs able to hold payloads as large as 37 pounds.
Officials also want a seeker system with electro-optical and infrared modes of the new cruise missile, and would consider additional guidance options to enable the weapon to acquire and reacquire targets in flight. The addition of a millimeter-wave radar is be one possibility.
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John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics
