The most dynamic area of missile development remains air-to-surface weapons, with several traditional areas such as air defense, anti-tank and anti-ship missiles in the doldrums. The continuing lack of significant missiles sales from Russia has had a significant impact on U.S. military actions and defense developments, especially in areas affecting air warfare. While the consolidation of the European defense industries over the past few years was heralded as the beginning of a challenge to U.S. dominance in missile exports, the lack of coordinated development efforts suggests that, if anything, European sales are shrinking due to a lack of investment in several key areas.

AIR-TO-SURFACE TRENDS

The Enduring Freedom air campaign over Afghanistan in 2001-02 was further evidence of the continuing shift toward guided weapons in contemporary air warfare. During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, 8,300 LGBs (laser-guided bombs) were dropped during the air campaign, about 5% of the total bombs used. Although only a relatively small percentage of the munitions expended, LGBs were credited with about 50% of the targets hit. Of the 23,614 weapons dropped during the 1999 NATO air campaign in the former Yugoslavia, 35% were precision-guided weapons. During the initial phase of the Afghanistan war from October 2001 to March 2002 when the most ordnance was expended, U.S. aircraft dropped 10,500 bombs of which 4,734 were fitted with joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs) (45%) and 1,320 with Paveway LGB kits (12%). Combined with guided missiles, precision-guided weapons represented 60% of the munitions used in the most recent air campaign.

The shift to guided weapons has been accelerated by the advent of low-cost GPS and inertial navigation systems (INS) components. This revolution in air warfare is not yet over and it is likely to continue in at least two further directions. On the one hand, the current generation of GPS/INS guidance kits are too large to be fit on bombs much below 1,000 lb. This has led to an Air Force effort called Small Diameter Bomb. The main goal is to reduce the size of the guidance kit to enable it to be fit to bombs as small as 250 lb. This is attractive for a variety of reasons. Small bombs had fallen out of favor in recent wars because, if they are unguided, they are not particularly lethal. But with a GPS/INS kit added, even a 250-lb. bomb is quite lethal due to the small miss distance. As a result, an aircraft can attack several times more targets with many small smart bombs than with a single big JDAM. An additional incentive for this shift is the advent of stealth aircraft. Because the F-117, F-22 and B-2 must carry their loads internally to maintain their stealth characteristics, the space in their internal bomb bays is at a premium. With stealth aircraft being relatively expensive compared with conventional strike aircraft both in terms of procurement and operating costs, it becomes important to magnify the lethality of their payloads.

Several other innovations in the precision revolution are likely. Many smart bombs will probably be designed with pop-out wings in the years to come as a means of increasing the attack footprint of strike aircraft. These wings permit the smart bombs to glide, extending their range compared with free-fall bombs. As a result, a single aircraft fitted with large numbers of small smart bombs with extended-range wing kits can attack targets across a far wider area than can current strike aircraft, which must fly near all their targets to deliver their bombs.