A Royal Air Force ground crew member transports a Paveway bomb to a Tornado GR4 prior to an operation.
Paveway III is an upgraded Laser Guided Bomb and is designed specifically to defeat hardened targets, such as protected underground command posts. When Paveway III is released from an aircraft it flies on a pre-programmed course towards its target, using a flight profile designed to give it the best approach to achieve a successful attack.
It carries a 900kg penetrator warhead that is steered to the target by a more advanced and precise guidance package, compared with that fitted to the smaller Paveway II bomb.
Steerable vanes on the front of the bomb are controlled by a proportional guidance system that increases accuracy, and its range by limiting the amount of kinetic energy lost in maneuvering. Computer-controlled shaping of the attack trajectory maximises the bomb's capacity for penetrating a considerable depth of reinforced concrete to destroy a target.
