Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB)

www.thedefensepost.com

Russian Jamming Reducing Accuracy of US Guided Weapons in Ukraine: Experts

Experts say Russian jamming in Ukraine has become so effective that even US-made guided weapons may no longer hit targets accurately.
www.thedefensepost.com www.thedefensepost.com

www.politico.com

Russia jamming U.S. smart bombs in Ukraine, leaked docs say

A separate technical problem, since fixed, had been causing the munitions to fail.
www.politico.com www.politico.com

www.eurasiantimes.com

Unable To 'Destroy' Even A Single HIMARS, Russia Is Jamming Its Missiles With 'Pole Attacks'

The Ukrainian armed forces could face a monumental challenge as it can no longer rely on the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) missiles and Excalibur artillery shells as the Russian electronic warfare (EW) systems are now reportedly leading them astray. China Uses Rafale...
www.eurasiantimes.com www.eurasiantimes.com

As an aside there was some articles around November last year that Ukraine had managed to overcome jamming of open commercial frequencies used by consumer quadcopters between the drone and the operator by scrambling the GPS position data transmitted by the drone back to the operator, they were having the drones intentionally transmit bad or impossible location data that they could unscramble so when the Russians transmitted false (but plausible) location data they knew it was fake.
 
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The US DoD will no doubt be on top of this coming up with technical solutions to counter Russian anti-GPS jamming also once Ukraine gets its' F-16s they will need to be given a shitload of AGM-88s to destroy those Russian jammers (Well, the Ukrainians are already working overtime to identify and destroy these jamming units).
 
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It seems this ineffectiveness contributed to why the US decided on the supply of ATACMS to Ukraine.

This is disappointing. If you are wondering why you never hear about GLSDB being used by Ukraine, it is because it has been an operational failure.Boing and SAAB were awarded a contract and delivered GLSDB to Ukraine, but in a real-world environment, it doesn't actually work.Due to electromagnetic interference from the Russians and the normal wear and tear of the launchers being out in an real world environment, GLSDB never proved reliable at hitting its targets on the battlefield.This might have contributed to Biden's decision to send long range ATACMS finally in February.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1783973226689011730
View: https://twitter.com/RealJakeBroe/status/1783973226689011730
 
Scott Kenny said:
Plus Russia busting out the heavy jammers and GPS location spoofers.
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There's that however Ukraine has been actively hunting and destroying these jammers whenever they can identify them and from what I understand these jammers are very expensive and difficult to replace.

Hopefully Boeing will be busy in identifying fixes to implement on the SDB1s.
 
A good way to make use of GLSDB again. Maybe 9thers will be interrested too.
 
NMaude said:
With the addition of anti-GPS jammer HOJ seekers used on the GLSDB and the JDAM-ER I predict that Russian GPS jammers will quickly became an endangered "Species" in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
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Until they adapt again. Maybe using airborne Jammer then ?
 
Forest Green said:
This is applicable to several threads.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1786577822212915612
View: https://x.com/AirPowerNEW1/status/1786577822212915612


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This is a very small contract that falls under “small business innovation.” Call me when there is $10 billion in funding and prime contractors involved.

Under normal circumstances, $10 million might buy the Pentagon a proof of concept. I suspect that this project might be a way of trying to generate something fieldable without compromising truly sensitive tech.
 
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TinWing said:
This is a very small contract that falls under “small business innovation.” Call me when there is $10 billion in funding and prime contractors involved.

Best case scenario, $10 million might buy the Pentagon a proof of concept.
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??? I know inflation is never ending but $10bn for the aquisition of small electronic devices seems excessive. You could buy around a thousand SM-3 IIAs for that price.
 
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Forest Green said:
??? I know inflation is never ending but $10bn for the aquisition of small electronic devices seems excessive. You could buy around a thousand SM-3 IIAs for that price.
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www.twz.com

JDAM-ER Winged Bombs With Seekers That Home In On GPS Jammers Headed To Ukraine

Plans to give Ukraine JDAM-ERs with new seekers come as Western precision-guided munitions are reportedly suffering from Russian GPS jamming.
www.twz.com www.twz.com

Reading through the article, it would make a lot more sense to integrate a home-on-GPS jam seeker into an Excalibur 155mm guided shell than a JDAM-ER or SDB-II. If highly localized GPS jammers were easy to triangulate you’d already be taking them out with the equivalent of counter battery fire, not a homing head glide bomb. If the jammers were regional, like the big one in Kalingrad, it would be the job for something like AARGM. This solution seems as if it would require a fairly permissive air defense environment.

An anti-GPS jammer capability is going to be necessary for even non-peer expeditionary warfare going forward, with the illustration of generic cruise missiles from the 2018 brochure suggesting as much. It’s not an easy puzzle to solve because localized GPS jammers can potentially be quite numerous.
 
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TinWing said:
www.twz.com

JDAM-ER Winged Bombs With Seekers That Home In On GPS Jammers Headed To Ukraine

Plans to give Ukraine JDAM-ERs with new seekers come as Western precision-guided munitions are reportedly suffering from Russian GPS jamming.
www.twz.com www.twz.com

Reading through the article, it would make a lot more sense to integrate a home-on-GPS jam seeker into an Excalibur 155mm guided shell than a JDAM-ER or SDB-II.
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Yes, but SDB2 is one of the last places I'd install the HOJ seekers, it's got other seekers it can use. JDAMs and SDB1 don't.


TinWing said:
An anti-GPS jammer capability is going to be necessary for even non-peer expeditionary warfare going forward, with the illustration of generic cruise missiles from the 2018 brochure suggesting as much. It’s not an easy puzzle to solve because localized GPS jammers can be quite numerous.
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Needs a datalink between weapons and a way to call targets.

Dump an MLRS battery full of GL-SDB with HOJ seekers and watch all the jammers go away.
 
TinWing said:
www.twz.com

JDAM-ER Winged Bombs With Seekers That Home In On GPS Jammers Headed To Ukraine

Plans to give Ukraine JDAM-ERs with new seekers come as Western precision-guided munitions are reportedly suffering from Russian GPS jamming.
www.twz.com www.twz.com

Reading through the article, it would make a lot more sense to integrate a home-on-GPS jam seeker into an Excalibur 155mm guided shell than a JDAM-ER or SDB-II. If highly localized GPS jammers were easy to triangulate you’d already be taking them out with the equivalent of counter battery fire, not a homing head glide bomb. If the jammers were regional, like the big one in Kalingrad, it would be the job for something like AARGM. This solution seems as if it would require a fairly permissive air defense environment.

An anti-GPS jammer capability is going to be necessary for even non-peer expeditionary warfare going forward, with the illustration of generic cruise missiles from the 2018 brochure suggesting as much. It’s not an easy puzzle to solve because localized GPS jammers can potentially be quite numerous.
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Raises a question as to how much an Excalibur can deviate mid-flight though.

Scott Kenny said:
Yes, but SDB2 is one of the last places I'd install the HOJ seekers, it's got other seekers it can use. JDAMs and SDB1 don't.
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I think the idea is that you fire a standard GPS at your target of choice plus a HOJ. They can either shut down the jammer and let the former hit the target or they can keep the jammer on and lose the jammer. Sort of like SEAD for GPS jammers, or SEJ if that's a thing.
 
Forest Green said:
Raises a question as to how much an Excalibur can deviate mid-flight though.


I think the idea is that you fire a standard GPS at your target of choice plus a HOJ. They can either shut down the jammer and let the former hit the target or they can keep the jammer on and lose the jammer. Sort of like SEAD for GPS jammers, or SEJ if that's a thing.
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A radar can see an incoming ARM missile but unless it is networked with radar, a GPS jammer wouldn’t? Moreover, I wouldn’t think that jammers would be heavily manned so who is there to shut it down? Do you really need an operator at a console? Aside from someone to make sure that the diesel generator is running?
 
TinWing said:
Reading through the article, it would make a lot more sense to integrate a home-on-GPS jam seeker into an Excalibur 155mm guided shell than a JDAM-ER or SDB-II.
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A lot more complicated to harden electronics against 13,000g launch acceleration, though. Most of Copperhead's costs were due to that, even though ( from memory ) its maximum charge only generated 8,000g
 
TinWing said:
Reading through the article, it would make a lot more sense to integrate a home-on-GPS jam seeker into an Excalibur 155mm guided shell than a JDAM-ER or SDB-II.
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That would be incredibly difficult. The forces involved from cannon launch are enormous, far more so than from an MLRS or aerial launch.

The best place for a HOJ sensor is on the end of a drone...like the Israeli HARPY/HAROP. The ability to loiter, return for re-use and have its terminal attack potentially guided via a EO/IR sensor with a datalink to human operator would make far more sense.
 
TinWing said:
A radar can see an incoming ARM missile but unless it is networked with radar, a GPS jammer wouldn’t? Moreover, I wouldn’t think that jammers would be heavily manned so who is there to shut it down? Do you really need an operator at a console? Aside from someone to make sure that the diesel generator is running?
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Well, I was assuming there was some kind of communication between the radar and the EW station but maybe not. I guess the EW station just gets hit then if there's no operator to shut it down. The blast radius of a JDAM should cover the accuracy requirement minus dedicated terminal homing. After all, HARMs only have a 125lb warhead, so a 250-1,000lb warhead should more than suffice.
 
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In regards to GPS spoofing and jamming Scott Manley has just put out a video about that:


There's been lots of stories over the last few years about GPS Jamming and Spoofing, this was always something that was known to be possible, but in the last few years it's become a near constant feature of conflicts, hot and cold, around the world.
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Track GPS Interference using ADS-B datahttps://gpsjam.org/
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So GLSDB hasn't been abandoned....or it could be that its use closer to the front, and potentially further away from extensive Russian GPS jamming is still viable. Might be a useful capability still for Ukraine and take some pressure off the aircraft dropping JDAM and AASM (and soon Paveway IV).

Doesn't appear to be any issues with accuracy on these 4....but Vovchansk is inside Ukraine and is right on the frontline from the Russian advance in Kharkiv Oblast. To note: Osint Technical is a very reliable OSINTer but there are 4 not 3 GLSDB here, the last 2 come in simultaneously.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1792252902565712326
View: https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1792252902565712326
 
timmymagic said:
So GLSDB hasn't been abandoned....or it could be that its use closer to the front, and potentially further away from extensive Russian GPS jamming is still viable.
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In regards to Russian GPS jamming, well:

Forest Green said:
This is applicable to several threads.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1786577822212915612
View: https://x.com/AirPowerNEW1/status/1786577822212915612


View attachment 727849
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Just make sure all of the SDBIs are equipped with the anti-GPS HOJ seekers and that will very quickly take care of the Russian GPS jammers.
 
timmymagic said:
So GLSDB hasn't been abandoned....or it could be that its use closer to the front, and potentially further away from extensive Russian GPS jamming is still viable. Might be a useful capability still for Ukraine and take some pressure off the aircraft dropping JDAM and AASM (and soon Paveway IV).

Doesn't appear to be any issues with accuracy on these 4....but Vovchansk is inside Ukraine and is right on the frontline from the Russian advance in Kharkiv Oblast. To note: Osint Technical is a very reliable OSINTer but there are 4 not 3 GLSDB here, the last 2 come in simultaneously.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1792252902565712326
View: https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1792252902565712326
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This was a more obvious GLSDB one @0:13:

1716302007203.png
https://twitter.com/x/status/1791860995289215279
View: https://x.com/Archer83Able/status/1791860995289215279
 
The facility would “support the engineering and production of missile weapon systems for the U.S. military, such as components for the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb system, and close combat weapons,” the company said in a news release earlier this year.
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www.mlive.com

Saab eyes Northern Michigan for plant to build missile systems, close combat weapons

Saab, the Swedish defense and security company, is considering Grayling as the site of a new U.S. munitions plant.
www.mlive.com www.mlive.com
 
Since the GLSDB was a company funded private initiative between Boeing and SAAB I wonder if Raytheon will consider something similar for their SDB2? While the SDB2 is more expensive than the SDB1 it does have the advantage of having a terminal homing seeker that enables it to attack moving targets.

On another note I hope that the SDB1s being supplied to Ukraine are being fitted with the anti-GPS HOJ terminal seeker.
 
What is the proper thread to post it in concerning air-launched SDB-Is?
 
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