Raytheon to build 53 AGM-154 Block 3 C glide bombs with imaging infrared guidance for attacking hard targets
PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md. – Precision-guided munitions experts at Raytheon Technologies Corp. (RTX) will provide the U.S. and Bahrain military forces with 53 hard-target-penetrating and data-linked medium-range precision-guided target-penetrating glide bombs under terms of a $155.7 million order announced in December.
Officials of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., are asking the RTX Raytheon segment in Tucson, Ariz., to produce 53 AGM-154 Block 3 C Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) air-to-ground missile systems -- 47 for Bahrain and six for the Navy.
The AGM-154 JSOW is medium range precision-guided weapon for attacking defended targets from outside the range of standard anti-aircraft defenses. Pilots typically fire JSOW from ranges of 22 to 70 nautical miles.
The order includes training and test supplies and services, containers, technical data, engineering technical services, and inert equipment.
The weapon can be launched from F/A-18, F-16, F-15, F-35, and Jas Gripen jet fighter-bombers; as well as from B-1B, B-2A, and B-52H long-range jet bombers. The AGM-154C JSOW unitary variant uses an imaging infrared seeker with autonomous guidance.
The fire-and-forget JSOW has a tightly coupled global positioning system (GPS) and inertial navigation system (INS) for navigation, and is capable of day/night and adverse weather operations. The JSOW-C adds an infrared seeker for terminal guidance.
The two-stage AGM-154C carries the BROACH warhead made up from a WDU-44 shaped augmenting warhead and a WDU-45 follow through bomb, and is designed to attack hardened targets like armor, concrete, and earth to enable a large following warhead to explode inside the target. The JSOW 13 feet long and weighs about 1,000 pounds.
On this order Raytheon will do the work in Tucson, Ariz.; Monmouthshire, Wales; Vergennes, Vt.; Reading, Scotland; Joplin, Mo.; Goleta, Calif.; Loveland, Colo.; Richardson, Texas; Tulsa, Okla.; and Minneapolis, and should be finished by March 2028. For more information contact RTX Raytheon online at www.rtx.com/raytheon, or Naval Air Systems Command at www.navair.navy.mil.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
