Air Force Revs Up Production of Precision Bomb Dubbed "World's Largest Sniper"

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Some are calling it a more "humanitarian" weapon, if only jokingly: the Air Force is accelerating the production of its popular precision-guided BLU-129 bomb, which is “so accurate, lethal and precise, it is called ‘the world’s largest sniper accuracy.’” The beauty of this “adaptable carbon fiber bomb” is its power can be adjusted in mid-flight, allowing for tighter, “cleaner” attacks that could potentially reduce collateral damage.

“We want to have options and flexibility so we can take out this one person with a hit-to-kill munition, or crank it up and take out a truck or a wide area,” Hasse told Warrior Maven. A vendor which makes some of the warhead casing, Aerojet Rocketdyne, provides some technical detail about how the weapon achieves its precision. "These weapons use carbon-fiber-wound construction of the warhead casing, provided by Aerojet Rocketdyne. A carbon-fiber-wound bomb body disintegrates instead of fragmenting, which adds explosive force nearby, but lowers collateral damage," a statement from Aerojet Rocketdyne says.
 
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When you want to reach out and touch someone... And let them know they've been touched dial 1-800-BIG-BOMB.
 
They used precision bombs in the first ware against Iraq. The press loved showing the videos of the bomb hitting a building. I'm guessing this is a new and improved version of that technology (which was in the early 90's).
 
Looks like they can adjust the explosive nature of the bomb even in mid-flight. That way it can be a very small yet concentrated explosion, or something larger to take out surrounding targets.
 
They used precision bombs in the first ware against Iraq. The press loved showing the videos of the bomb hitting a building. I'm guessing this is a new and improved version of that technology (which was in the early 90's).

I believe most all the bombs from the first iraq war were laser guided bombs. These are GPS guided AFAIK. And you can never have too many BLU-129's.
 
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Looks like they can adjust the explosive nature of the bomb even in mid-flight. That way it can be a very small yet concentrated explosion, or something larger to take out surrounding targets.

i guarantee they will set everything to large in case the signal to maximize fails mid flight ( jamming, weather, technical hiccup etc )

all this modularity mid flight is all just a complete waste of money. (bombs now can already be set preflight)

...Like there is any culpability for collateral in the American military justice system...
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quote
"Hasse explained that the BLU-129 brings additional elements of attack flexibility because instead of traveling with both very large, heavier bombs, a pilot can simply drop four BLU-129s on a target to increase blast effect."

that is not how it works. you send a bomber squad ( or 1 ) with a mission in mind, and you equip these planes with the right bombs to achieve that target.

You don't send bombers to fly round and round looking for incidental targets to hit..
 
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A modern Iskander does about a 10 meter CEP at 300k+. Why the west hates it. ;)
 
i guarantee they will set everything to large in case the signal to maximize fails mid flight ( jamming, weather, technical hiccup etc )

all this modularity mid flight is all just a complete waste of money. (bombs now can already be set preflight)

...Like there is any culpability for collateral in the American military justice system...
---
quote
"Hasse explained that the BLU-129 brings additional elements of attack flexibility because instead of traveling with both very large, heavier bombs, a pilot can simply drop four BLU-129s on a target to increase blast effect."

that is not how it works. you send a bomber squad ( or 1 ) with a mission in mind, and you equip these planes with the right bombs to achieve that target.

You don't send bombers to fly round and round looking for incidental targets to hit..

Might be useful on drones vs “insurgents” where they are made to just loiter around.
 
A modern Iskander does about a 10 meter CEP at 300k+. Why the west hates it. ;)

right. the Pershing II was doing that in the 80's, then the INF treaty came along and we had to destroy them all.

Guess what Treaty doesn't exist anymore....
 
They used precision bombs in the first ware against Iraq. The press loved showing the videos of the bomb hitting a building. I'm guessing this is a new and improved version of that technology (which was in the early 90's).

Current trend is multimode seekers/guidance. GPS can be jammed, or at least degraded, so most new designs for precision weapons are now equipped with GPS, INS (Inertial guidance system, less accurate but unjammable) and in some weapons active Millimeter wave radar and Laser guidance.

Most of our GPS guided bombs used to be Laser guided, all it really is, is a bolt on guidance package, that screws in the fuze assembly and tail section of a standard "dumb" Iron bomb. but these produce a lot more damage than is needed for precision strikes. the smallest of the old "iron" bombs used was a steel cased 500lb bomb, with a huge danger radius. this is why the Hellfire missile with its 18lb warhead and the non metallic cased 250lb, GBU-39 SDB (small diameter bomb) are used so much.
 
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