US Navy, The U.S. Navy recently accepted its 3,000th Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) at the same time its JSOW program invests in a future precision-guided bomb variant that can hit moving targets at sea.
The 3,000th bomb – a JSOW-C variant – arrived at McAlester Army Ammunition Plant, Pa., in September to join Navy inventory after production at Raytheon Company facilities in Tucson, Ariz.
JSOW is a family of affordable, precision-guided, air-to-ground glide weapons capable of striking targets in sensitive and well-defended areas. More than 400 JSOWs have been used in combat operations, including Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“JSOW's battle-proven capability provides us with an unbeatable combination of affordability, lethality, survivability and standoff range,” said Capt. Mat Winter, Naval Air Systems Command’s Precision Strike Weapons Program Manager (PMA-201). “The delivery of the 3,000th JSOW is a noteworthy accomplishment for this critical air-to-ground system because it highlights the successful long-term government/Industry relationship between Raytheon and PMA-201 in producing a reliable, quality product for the Fleet .”
Like its predecessors, the 3,000th JSOW has a modular design, allowing the weapon to deliver a variety of payloads.
JSOW-A and –C variants are included in the total delivery milestone. JSOW-A, which carries submunitions, finished its production phase earlier this year. The Navy intends to purchase a total of 7,000 JSOW-C missiles, which predominantly carry a dual-stage penetrating warhead, but like all JSOW is built with a modular design that allows it to deliver a variety of payloads.
The JSOW program office also has developed a JSOW-C Block II, which provides the same capability as its predecessor at nearly one-third lower cost. This proactive cost reduction initiative resulted in program savings of $421 million mostly by improving the modularity and simplicity of the JSOW’s design. From that savings, $37 million is being reinvested in development of the AGM-154C-1, a JSOW-C Block II equipped with a datalink transceiver and moving-target algorithms to target enemy vessels at sea.
“The AGM-154C-1 will mark one more evolution in the JSOW, and provide the first true Net-Enabled Strike Weapon into the Fleet arsenal,” said Winter. “We continue to leverage the success of JSOW to ensure future lethal capabilities for the warfighter at an affordable cost.”
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