MBDA has won a modest but potentially major contract to start supplying its Diamond Back range extension kit to the U.S. Air Force’s Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) program. MBDA Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of MBDA Missile Systems, will provide more than 200 sets of Diamond Back wings under the Lot 1 low rate initial production contract for the SDB (the actual SDB order is for 201 bombs). MBDA is teamed with Boeing (the prime contractor for SDB); this purchase is the first sale of the Diamond Back system after years of evaluation in the United States.
The SDB is a new 250-lb class precision guided bomb, designed to fit inside the weapons bays of future fighters like the F/A-22 and F-35, but to deliver the destructive effect of a much larger weapon. The Diamond Back wings give the SDB much increased standoff range by turning it into a gliding weapon with a range of over 60 nmi. In May a USAF F-15E conducted the longest-ranged test of an SDB to date; the bomb hit its target within 34 inches of the intended impact point from a range of 55 nmi.
Production will begin in January 2006 and the USAF is expected to issue its Lot 2 contract before the end of this year. The total U.S. SDB order expected to be around 24,000 weapons, worth some $2.5 billion. However, all may not be smooth sailing for Boeing and the SDB. The program was one of those tainted by the Darleen Dryun acquisition scandal, and the General Accounting Office has decreed that Boeing’s 2002 SDB contract award had been unduly influenced. In April the Air Force agreed to let Lockheed Martin re-compete for the next phase of the SDB acquisition program.
