Putin’s war in Ukraine, which has reached the 29-month mark, is in a continuous dynamic on the battlefront. It also became a testing ground for various Western munitions and weaponry. Now the United States plans to produce and send to Ukraine new types of lethal long-range smart missiles, but which cannot be jammed by Russia.
The new American extended-range missiles (ERAM) will be manufactured at low cost, they will weigh 500 pounds (226 kg), develop a speed of 0.6 Much (740 km/h) and strike at distances of nearly 500 km into enemy territory, according to Interesting Engineering.
In a recent request for proposal (RFP) document, the US Air Force said it is seeking to procure the initial phases of a new aircraft-launched weapon, the ERAM.
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The service said the ammunition is critical to accelerating Ukraine’s ability to meet its aircraft needs effectively and provide an affordable, mass-produced weapon.
In the RFP, which is being sent to 16 selected companies, the US Air Force added that it is seeking to prototype and adapt an open-architecture, modular, autonomous commercial vehicle that can provide long-range effects at affordable prices. The resulting prototype will provide a mass-produced platform.
ERAM’s technical specifications show that the new missiles will be 226 kg weapons, travel at a minimum speed of Mach 0.6 (740 km/h) and have a range of 288 miles (463 km).
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The missile will have a variable fuselage option and a navigation system capable of operating in a degraded Global Positioning System (GPS) environment. The weapon will be capable of hitting within 33 feet (10 m) of the specified point of impact at least 50 percent of the time in both non-EMI (electromagnetic interference) and high EMI environments, even without GPS access .
The missile could not include a GPS, mainly because Russia has an effective GPS jamming system against Western weapons. The US Air Force plans to procure 1,000 such missiles for Ukraine within two years of the contract award.
Russian jamming devices render some US missile launchers useless. The Russian jamming system, which operates from the ground and projects an EW “cone” of interference into the sky, has rendered the US-supplied M142 High Mobility Artillery Missile System (HIMARS) often useless in Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces labeled the systems “completely ineffective”. The jamming prevents weapons from communicating with satellites to guide them to targets. The United States began supplying Ukraine with HIMARS systems very early in the conflict. If reports are to be believed, the system proved very effective initially.
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For the uninitiated, HIMARS is a truck-mounted missile launcher that can fire various munitions, including GPS-guided missiles. HIMARS can hit targets with incredible accuracy, at least until adversaries like Russia can disrupt such systems.
The assessment said Ukraine stopped using Excalibur shells last year after the weapon “lost its potential” and dropped to just 10 percent effectiveness. However, other systems, such as the UK’s Storm Shadow missile and the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), are less vulnerable to jamming.
Russia has also successfully disrupted the Starlink satellite network, which Ukrainian troops rely on for internet connectivity. This has become so bad that Ukrainian forces have suffered significant disruptions in recent weeks as Russia ramps up its EW capabilities.
“We work closely with the Pentagon on such matters. In the event of technical problems, we promptly inform our partners to take the necessary measures to resolve them in a timely manner,” a spokesman for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said earlier this year.
Source: ziare.com
