India developing guided bombs for fighter jets

AVERAGE INDIAN

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By the end of next year, Indian fighter planes could be equipped with indigenously-developed 'glide bombs', which will be guided to their targets for precision attacks.

The first-of-its-kind bomb in the country, being developed by the DRDO, will boost India's strike capabilities as targets can be hit even beyond the range of a fighter aircraft.

The DRDO is working on developing glide capabilities on the existing bombs of various payloads including 100 kgs, 250 kgs and 500 kgs.

"We are developing glide bombs which can be directed towards their intended targets using guidance mechanisms after being dropped from aircraft of the IAF," outgoing DRDO chief V K Saraswat said.

"Such a capability will allow the IAF pilots to drop the bombs at their intended targets from stand-off distances as the glide capabilities will help in enhancing the range of the bombs," he said.

The DRDO has already carried out two trials of such bombs successfully and plans to hold more trials this year for proving the capabilities of the ammunition.

"By the end of the next year, we want to complete all the development trials of the glide bombs before offering it to the IAF," he said.

The outgoing DRDO chief said the organisation is also in the process of developing an anti-radiation missile, which will multiply the strike capabilities of the armed forces by destroying the enemy's advance warning system.

Such missiles can be mounted on Sukhoi fighter planes Su-30 MKI.

These missile can detect a radar by tracking its electro-magnetic radiation and pulses generated and these would be independent of the radar wavelength and be able to

destroy it.

Such missiles, currently in use of some major powers like the US, can detect and attack a radar antenna or transmitter with minimal aircrew input.

The proportional guidance system that homes in on enemy radar emissions has a fixed antenna and seeker head in the missile's nose.

The ARMs are used by the US Air Force and they move at the speed of over Mach 2, propelled by a smokeless and solid-propellant rocket motor.

The US Air Force introduced High Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM) on the F-4G Wild Weasel and later on specialised F-16s equipped with the HARM Targeting System (HTS).

Listing the successful test-firing of the over 5,000 km range Agni-5 missile as the "crowning glory" of his tenure as DRDO chief, Saraswat said more lethal versions of the missile would be developed.

He said the DRDO was working on producing a variant of the missile with Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) warheads.This MIRV capability would make the missile capable of carrying multiple warheads to destroy several targets in one go.

Terming it as a "force multiplier", he said, "I will be able to do force multiplication with this"¦ where I was using four missiles, I may use only one missile."

He said a few more tests of the missile would be done before it is ready for induction into the armed forces.

On the joint venture programmes to develop Medium-range Surface to Air Missile (MR-SAM) and Long-range SAM (LR-SAM) with Israel, he said the programme has been delayed by two years due to some technological problems.

India and Israel have formed a joint venture under which the IAF and the Navy would get these missile systems.

India developing guided bombs for fighter jets - Indian Express
 
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Are these going to be kits? When the french were bombing Libya they ran out of munitions and they
Used smart bomb kits placed with cement bombs that were dropped from rafaels. When you develop
The kits they can be mated with any dumb bombs.
 

The Last Stand

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We had laser guided bombs before Kargil. What's new with these "guided bombs". Do they have some sort of propulsion?
 

agentperry

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so it simply a kit to give glide capability to the bombs or it include a navigation system as well? if it has a navigation system then what is the use of sudarshan kit? they give a laser based navigation system to the bomb.

knowledgeable kindly throw some light
 

DivineHeretic

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Are these going to be kits? When the french were bombing Libya they ran out of munitions and they
Used smart bomb kits placed with cement bombs that were dropped from rafaels. When you develop
The kits they can be mated with any dumb bombs.
I doubt they will be kits. You require a pretty large surface area (wing area) for gliding( especially when the package is a 500kg/1000lb bomb), while normal PGMs only require control fins to course correct the free falling munition.

This new munition will likely be a single unit, and not a kit, with a wing design IMO, to enable the AF planes to conduct limited stand-off precision strikes at a fraction of the cost of a missile. Also without any powering rocket, it will not show up on IRST sensors, increasing probability of a succesful strike.

@Keshav Murali, these new munitions will not have powered flight, but rather glide to target. It increases the range of the munition without the need for a rocket motor. They are much more different from LGBs used in Kargil which simply followed the laser beam to target (in freefall/limited glide)

@agentperry, it will have most definately have a guidance mechanism, as stated in the report itself. The word precision mean guided in one way or the other. In any case, it would be a waste of the extended reach if the glide bomb had a large CEP, making it a lower choice for strike missions.

Sudarshan kit converts a dumb bomb ( a la WW2 bomb) into a precision guided smart munition, with CEP in single digits. These smart PGMs have a range of 8-9 km in the horizontal direction from the AC. Whereas the new glide bomb will significantly increase the range many fold, upto as much as 40-50Km depending upon wind conditions. The AC can maintain a safe distance from the target site, saving itself from SR-SAMs.

At 40-50 km range, Laser becomes ineffective for precision strikes. The preferred method is GPS/GLONASS/IRNS etc satellite based navigqtion system. They are also more reliable in bad weather than Laser based guidance systems.
 
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Dinesh_Kumar

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There is an article on net somewhere on development of Bombs in India by OFB, also avbl on other forums like BR. Came out during Aero India time, gives good insights. I think Wg. Com. Rao is the author's name. I request Dada or other Gurus, to see if they can look it up. I will also try and search.
 

Kunal Biswas

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I wont disagree with @DivineHeretic post, But want to post this..

==========>>



Diamond Back Weapon's Guidance Kit
MBDA is developing a range extension kit for the SDB designated Diamond-Back. The kit features a tandem-wing design which integrates with the weapon guidance. When stored and carried by the aircraft, the wings are stored in a compact assembly on the back of the weapon.

When released, the wings are extracted to form a diamond shaped structure deployed extending the weapon's footprint over 20 times, compared to a basic weapon. This capability allows a single platform to engage multiple targets dispersed over a large area. MBDA plans to extend the Diamond Back kits to support 500 lb, 1000 lb and 2000 lbs JDAM munitions.
source : Diamond Back Weapon's Guidance Kit
 
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