Ukraine is the new sandbox and the latest military toy is the ground launched small diameter bomb.
Essentially, it is a guided missile launched from existing U.S. made multiple rocket launcher systems cobbled together from existing weapons parts, with a much longer range than current artillery missiles of 80 miles, and a still considerable warhead payload. It would be accurate enough to hit a target the size of a single tank or a residential one car garage.
[T]he ground-launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) combines a 250-pound aircraft bomb with a GPS seeker, wings, and a rocket motor. . . . Boeing and Sweden’s Saab develop the ground-launched Small Diameter Bomb. Each GLSDB round is a combination of two systems: the rocket motor from the M26 artillery rocket and the air-launched 250-pound GBU-39/B SDB with its pop-out wing set.The M26 is one of the rockets that can be launched from the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and derivatives, as well as the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). . . .The weapon system, which has a maximum range of 150 kilometers, could effectively blanket the Ukrainian region taken since February 2022 and some areas of northern Crimea from the front line.
From here.
3 comments:
Hi Andrew,
Have recently read "359-SR-Ukraine-Preliminary-Lessons-Feb-July-2022-web-final" from a Brit military thinktank. They end the 70 page missive with the comment, apropos to your often stated "tanks are obsolete" guidance:
"Third, there has been abundant debate over whether the war proves the utility or obsolescence of various military systems: loitering munitions versus artillery, or ATGWs versus tanks. These debates are largely nugatory. Legacy systems, from T-64 tanks to BM-21 Grad MLRS have proven instrumental in Ukraine’s survival. That does not mean, however, that historical concepts of employment for these systems remain advisable. The key priority is to understand how new capabilities not only offer opportunity in and of themselves, but also enable and magnify the effects deliverable by legacy systems. Perhaps most important is to appreciate how the correct employment of exquisite capabilities can magnify the impact of cheap and crude equipment. It is evident that to exploit these opportunities, changes to orders of battle, C2 and novel employment may be necessary. The grouping of armour as a reserve, to be committed under propitious circumstances, for example, may make more sense than its distribution into the leading edge of offensive manoeuvre forces. It is also entirely plausible that the synergies between old and new capabilities shift the balance of requirements for the next generation of armoured platforms. But the enduring utility of these tools is not diminished by these changes. In modernising, therefore, forces need to examine how old and new form novel combinations of fighting systems, rather than treating modernisation as a process of deciding what should be procured and what should be discarded."
Thanks. I can't say that I have a high opinion of the mushy and equivocal writing style so common in this military affairs genre, which unfortunately, also reflects sloppy thinking.
Hi Andrew, The writing style... is the writing style I guess. Does seem a bit florid. I like that sometimes... especially in literature. There's lots of good stuff in the article. For example: The Ukrainians were using as much artillery ammo per week as the total British inventory. Cheers,
Guy
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