New air-to-ground missile JAGM with dual mode seeker provides precision standoff-strike capability to target armored and moving targets

The Hellfire missile is the primary 100-pound (45 kg) class air-to-ground precision weapon having multi-mission, multi-target precision-strike ability, and can be launched from multiple air, sea, and ground platforms, including the Predator drone. But the most common platform is the AH-64 Apache helicopter gunship, which can carry up to 16 of the missiles at once.

 

The LONGBOW HELLFIRE missile locks on targets before or after launch and has been used in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and in a number of targeted killings of high-profile individuals.

 

The Hellifire missile shall now be replaced with the JAGM, that is meant to provide the precision standoff-strike capability to target high-value fixed and moving targets, both armored and unarmored, even in poor weather conditions. It will replace several air-launched missiles, including the AGM-114 Hellfire.

 

It features a new dual-mode seeker and guidance system mated to a Hellfire missile. The JAGM combines semi-active laser guidance, like that used on the Hellfire II, and millimeter-wave radar, like that used by the Longbow Hellfire, into a single system. The millimeter wave seeker allows the missile to perform in full fire and forget mode. It also works in adverse weather and battlefield obscurants, such as smoke and fog which can mask the position of a target or prevent a designating laser from forming a detectable reflection.

 

Paired with a Hellfire Romeo warhead, motor, and flight-control system, the new missile is designed to hit vehicles and personnel in the open. A programmable delay feature allows it penetrate buildings or vehicles before detonating.

 

As NAVAIR explains, the JAGM is a so-called joint program in partnership with the U.S. Army. If and when the JAGM becomes an operational weapon, it will offer the Pentagon a precision-guided capability for use against high value stationary, moving and relocatable land and sea-based targets.

 

Army and Marine Corps attack helicopters will be the first to see it, though it could eventually make its way on to any aircraft that fires Hellfires, such as unmanned vehicles like the MQ-9 Reaper drone.

 

In May 2016, JAGM fired from a UAV, the MQ-1C Gray Eagle, for the first time, hitting a truck target traveling 20 mph (32 km/h). It was the seventh flight test and successful hit. In December 2016, JAGM launched by an AH-64D destroyed a small boat more than 4 km (2.5 mi) away in the tenth successful flight test.

 

The program was originally restructured several years ago from integrating a tri-mode seeker into the system to a dual-mode due to affordability challenges. A more expensive tri-mode seeker adding an imaging infrared sensor is delayed. Lockheed claimed the IR seeker disproportionately drove up costs, while Raytheon claimed it could leverage technology it used for the GBU-53/B SDB II to inexpensively keep the tri-mode seeker.

 

“As the threat and the requirements change, we will look at that next increment that would bring a tri-mode seeker and figure out the best acquisition strategy for going after that capability,” Warnick said. JAGM has an open architecture system, he added, “so there is growth capability in it and if the requirements and resources are available we will go after it.”

 

Warnick said JAGM will reach an initial operational capability in March 2019, which equates to providing 96 munitions for the stockpile. Then the Army will move to a full-rate production decision in September 2019.

 

The Army plans to spend a total of $1.6 billion to procure roughly 6,741 JAGM missiles across a five-year period from fiscal 2019 and 2023, according to FY19 Army budget request justification documents.

 

MBDA Inc.’s  Brimstone missile, also uses dual mode seeker  a laser designator and a sophisticated radar to find its targets, has been fired 300 times in Afghanistan and Libya and has a 98 percent strike rate. The Brimstone warhead uses a shaped charge and destroys the target with a much contained explosion that generates relatively little debris.