Hi Agra. Good info.
For the USAF anyway, they went with CBU-105 Wind Corrected Munitions Containers for carrying SFW BLU-108/b because they were a bit cheaper and CBU-105 carried more SFWs. That is the main reason for the USAF anyway, for no JSOW B models. If one wants you can also fit the glide wing kit to CBU-105 making it into an ER, however I don't know if we bought that option.
At least with a JSOW B model you know that the shape is cleared/certified for Super Hornet clearance/carry/drop. CBU-105 isn't a common U.S. Navy weapon and since the U.S.N. has to actually request to the Super Hornet program people, weapons that they will actually use, and then get carry, drop and certification flight testing done for said weapon, don't know if you will ever see a CBU-105 ever cleared for Super even though it wouldn't be that difficult to do. The Super Hornet program like everyone else is trying to make due with the very little money given to them. So yes a B JSOW could be an option for you if you ever wanted to go that way.
That is an incredible low price for JSOW-C compared to the past Agra. C (unitery Broach with IIR terminal guidance) would be impressive if still kinda expensive. (A-1 with a BLU-111 instead of dumb subminitions, no IIR, GPS/INS only are kinda cheap also if you ever wanted that for some reason). C because HART is built into Block II Supers, With HART, ground/SAR map imagery is gathered by the APG-79, the crew fiddles with the image to designate a target and passes that image to a Strap on IIR image sensor on the nose of a JDAM hanging on the aircraft. These strap on imagers for JDAM/HART are now funded by USN for delivery some time in the future. This HART technology will work with JSOW C and at some time there will be a software release on the Super Hornet spiral development plan to have this HART ability for JASSM. That SAR image that the HART equipped Super Hornet feeds into the weapon can obviously come over the network from another platform/network node. Example; a lead Super could gather a fresh image of a target of interest and pass the image to the decision maker and in turn that image is passed to another Super that has an IIR capable J-weapon on board. HART would also work with SLAM-ER if that ever was purchased. As we all know the Block II Super avionics are pretty amazing. You have a lot of future purchase options for capability needs/wants.
Off topic, back to the SFWs being smart submunitions with self destruct ability don't leave any duds lying around like dumb submuntions which have a high dud rate. A bambi loving peacenik group looked at some areas where CBU-105 was dropped after OIF and there were no duds. So any fearmongering over SFWs like the new Aussie arty PGM round leaving duds lying around are not an issue except maybe to the clueless press. It won't happen with that style smart submunition. The SFWs of that kind like in the Arty round are proven. BLU-108/b SFWs in one instance, contained by CBU-105, in OIF, killed off a significant portion of an armored unit. AFVs in the open will die fast when attacked in this way, in the classic form of "I can touch you, but you can't touch me".
CBU-105 BLU-108/b video (apologies as I couldn't find the original video that was much better and had real people interviews and showed test range footage).. This gives you an idea of what that style of SFW similar to your new arty rounds can do. This video is a bit wrong as only 2 CBU-105s were dropped which took out a 1/3 or so of the vehicles and the rest of the Iraqis, not knowing what was killing them, got out of their vehicles and put up there hands and surrendered to the USMC unit.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THZvZ6S4C14"]YouTube - Textron's Sensor Fuzed Weapon (SFW) in OIF B-52 attack[/ame]
