Cities have become the new battleground and Hybrid or Urban Warfare the greatest threat being waged by ISIS to Boko Haram to Hamas to Ukraine rebels.Urban warfare is the only way the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria will be defeated. Boko Haram is carrying out its urban terror campaign against the Nigerian Army and its allies. IDF’s ground forces is preparing to deal with an enemy that moves on foot, appears and vanishes quickly, is armed with deadly shoulder-held missiles and operates in an urban setting, filled with noncombatants. Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris also provide glimpses of this new kind of conflict that will be more frequent and more complicated.
New air, ground and sea based platforms and munitions are desired having capabilities of accurately engaging targets in urban terrain with low collateral damage. The size of projectiles and weapons need to be miniaturized so that they can be employed in helicopters and small UAVs, while enhancing their lethality and engagement ranges to defeat even defeat concealed targets. Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs), and other so-called “smart” weapons, have established themselves as a key military technology against targets whose destruction requires a high degree of precision. Precision strikes depend on accurate navigation throughout the entire course of a missile’s flight. GPS is a key enabling technology for existing and future military precision navigation applications.
US Army is asking for $3 billion worth of missiles and precision-guided munitions in the 2018 budget, and have submitted to Congress an additional $2.3 billion munitions wish list as part of the military’s “unfunded requirements” the services send to Capitol Hill every year. The budget also would accelerate the development of a new “long-range precision fires” missile for deep-strike offensive attacks. The Army is seeking $102 million to build two prototypes by 2019. This program is viewed as essential to counter Russian missiles that currently out-range U.S. weapons.
Information technology advances are enabling, new generation of guided munitions that allow extremely precise position location and navigation capability as well as miniaturization of the fuses, sensors and guidance systems, while reducing their costs. Artillery projectiles and tactical rockets are being miniaturized, with precision guidance along with long range and accuracy. Guidance Kits, and their components including the antenna structure, are an essential part of this technological evolution. This is especially important as they are both retrofitted to existing weapons platforms, or designed into new platforms, with the challenging and often conflicting requirements for smaller, lighter, more rugged, and lower cost.
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