GLSDB munitions proven largely ineffective in Ukraine — Pentagon

by thinkcontext

13 comments
  1. Well, you wont know until you’ve tried!

    Now we know, and I’m sure the Boeing/Saab engineers will figure out how to make the GLSDB (also the SDB) more resistant to EW jamming.

    Thanks to Ukraine to test it out for us.

  2. I’ve been thinking that the idea of short range gliding munitions is however exactly what is needed. Launched from a drone that designates the target in-view through the gliding devices own camera, the system can ‘lock on’ using machine vision as is being seen in some drones lately, then released from the drone.

    Optical links are possible as a nother way to control such a munition, also to the drone from operators. 905 and 1550nm laser communications are I think viable. 1550nm was selected for an optical communication system between ground and satellites in a NASA study, its got a relatively dark back ground but the atmosphere is clear to it and clouds don’t absorb it much. You can control beam divergence to allow communications more easily by broadening the beam as needed, tracking using gyros and electrical means to track sources, in this band. 905nm optics are much cheaper. They can control the munition by steering it or by laser designating the target to help it seek.

    But, anyhow, the albatros is the extreme example of a gliding bird, with a glide ratio up to 24:1, which means for every meter it drops it moves horizontally 24 meters. With short range glide bombs at say 2 to 10:1 glide ratio, the wings can be much smaller.

    These would be much smaller weapons, intended to attack smaller targets.

  3. Do we have to test it for 10 years at slow peace time rates?  Are our testing ranges that jammed up?  Do we not have people to fix the issues?.   If we tested for safety only it should have been released a year earlier.  If the glide path makes it too vulnerable to interception we need to send ER-GMLRS.  As I understand it, ER-GMLRS has passed testing and is in production. 

  4. Now that we finally realize this, just give Ukraine the rest of the M26 rockets and be done with it. It will save money and kill a whole lot more grids of ruzzian soldiers, than these glide bombs ever will.

  5. You can’t expect an enemy to not develop counters against your weapons. A vulnerability to GPS jamming should not be a hard problem to solve.

  6. This is just part of russian disinfo. The problems will be corrected. You know ,just like the FAB, the russsians are getting ae hard on for.

  7. Weird. Missiles used with HIMARS seem to be doing fine and these are old tech AFAIK. Where is the problem? Why would these be more sensitive to EW? Wouldn’t UAF use it opportunistically instead of jus throwing it to the side and not using it at all? Seems weird.

  8. I had hopes for these. Pity.

    However, the concept is a sound one. An upgrade to harden them for the new combat environment would likely do the trick (if it isn’t too expensive).

  9. Isnt GLSDB has additional inertial navigation system that not affected by electronic interference?

  10. So, if they are getting jammed headed for hard targets, and if they aren’t going to have a future without more development time, sell the entire stock to Ukraine for $1 each and use them on trenches and fielded artillery?

    I’m a complete novice to any of this, but it seems that any ranged boom boom has a place somewhere, regardless of it’s initial intended use.

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