An American weapon first dropped by stealth bombers over Kosovo in 1999 after which throughout fight within the post-9/11 wars will quickly be utilized by Ukrainian pilots flying Russian-made jets to kill Russian troopers.
The weapon, referred to as the Joint Direct Assault Munition, consists of a package that turns an inexpensive unguided bomb right into a extremely correct, GPS-guided weapon. It’s often known as JDAM (pronounced JAY-dam).
The Biden administration introduced this week that the weapons could be a part of a brand new $1.85 billion navy assist bundle, giving Kyiv a precision-guided bombing functionality it has by no means had.
When dropped from greater altitudes, the bomb can journey about 15 miles to its goal earlier than exploding.
With the proper of apparatus, Ukrainian jets might doubtlessly carry a number of JDAMs on a single mission, identical to U.S. and NATO warplanes do.
What are these weapons?
Technically talking, JDAM refers to a package that’s bolted onto the U.S. navy’s normal objective Mark-80-series bomb and turns it right into a GPS-guided weapon.
The Mark-80 warhead, which was developed quickly after World Battle II, was designed to be simply fitted with quite a lot of tail fins and fuzes to be used in a variety of conditions. Over many years, completely different attachments have been fielded — for low-level bombing, and to show them into land and sea mines, and eventually into varied sorts of guided weapons.
It sometimes is available in three sizes starting from 500 to 2,000 kilos. Nevertheless, which mannequin or fashions might be supplied to Ukraine is unclear.
Since their first fight use within the late Nineteen Nineties, JDAMs have been improved and new capabilities have been added. They’ll work with quite a lot of fuzes that management whether or not they explode above the bottom, on the floor or after burrowing into the bottom. One up to date package provides a pair of wings that open after the bomb is dropped, permitting it to fly greater than 40 miles to a goal.
They’re additionally comparatively cheap, within the Pentagon’s math. A Navy truth sheet up to date in 2021 put the essential JDAM package’s common value at just over $24,000 apiece.
The place did they arrive from?
JDAM was born out of the frustration that pilots and Air Drive leaders had with a distinct sort of guided bomb throughout Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
First utilized in small numbers towards the top of the Vietnam Battle, that bomb was referred to as the Paveway II. On the time, the concept was thought of revolutionary: An costly package mounted to the nostril and tail of a Mark-80 might make the in any other case unguided bomb maneuverable alongside the trail of a laser shone from the bottom or from a airplane above. However in Iraq, sandstorms and smoke typically disrupted the trail of the laser beams, inflicting the bomb to overlook its goal.
Months after that struggle ended, the Air Drive determined that navy pilots wanted a package that may not value greater than Paveway II and will information bombs in all climate circumstances. A brand new constellation of GPS satellites supplied an answer, repeatedly beaming radio alerts that would information bombs night time and day, rain or shine.
Air Drive leaders accelerated work on the same machine to provide what finally turned JDAMs, which at the moment are made by Boeing at a manufacturing facility in St. Charles, Mo.
Why did the U.S. wait to provide these bombs to Ukraine?
Not like some U.S.-provided weapons, the problem shouldn’t be the size of coaching or the price of upkeep. Just a few basic {hardware} and software program issues needed to be solved: JDAM kits weren’t designed for use with Ukraine’s Russian-made bombs, and the nation’s Russian warplanes can not carry American-made bombs, nor can Russian flight computer systems talk electronically with American guided munitions.
Since Poland, a former satellite tv for pc of the Soviet Union, joined the North Atlantic Treaty Group, a few of its Russian MIG-29 warplanes have been transformed to hold Western munitions, however that required changing their Soviet-designed pc programs and a few wiring with Western-made gear. A sooner method was wanted for Ukraine.
The Pentagon has mentioned little about the way it made that work.
What’s the downside that wanted to be solved?
It took some MacGyvering, however the issue right here was not in contrast to the one proven within the film Apollo 13, the place NASA engineers needed to match completely different components collectively with the intention to save the lives of astronauts in area — determining “put a sq. peg in a spherical gap,” because the story went.
In 2022, engineers needed to basically do this, and far more, to make JDAMs work on Russian jets with the minimal modifications.
The usual bombs utilized by the US and Russia are very completely different in design, as are the units used to connect them to warplanes and drop them over targets.
American-made bombs have two small metal lugs that safe them to racks designed to carry them snugly at excessive speeds and to shortly push them away from the airplane’s fuselage when a pilot presses a button to drop.
By comparability, many Russian bombs have just one suspension lug, and the racks that drop them are incompatible with U.S.-made weapons.
The U.S. navy solved the toughest a part of this downside months in the past, when Ukrainian pilots first began taking pictures the American-made high-speed anti-radiation missile, or HARM. An adapter was created to attach a tool referred to as a pylon and different components that maintain the weapon to the jet.
At Ramstein Air Base in Germany, a U.S. Air Drive and Air Nationwide Guard crew referred to as Gray Wolf offers help to the Ukrainian Air Drive, together with on techniques and methods, a navy spokesman mentioned.
Is there extra to it?
Sure, fairly a bit.
Carrying the bomb securely is one factor, however there are different issues. {The electrical} sign generated when a pilot presses the button to drop that bomb needs to be transformed to 1 that American-made units acknowledge. And earlier than being dropped, a JDAM wants knowledge on the plane’s place and velocity in addition to the goal’s location fed into it electronically whereas the airplane is in flight.
Newer sorts of American bomb racks and pylons supply options. One “sensible” pylon used with the HARM missile is now in service with Ukraine’s air drive.
The ultimate piece is to switch knowledge from the cockpit to the pylon as soon as all different conversions and adapters have been found out, mentioned Mike Pietrucha, a retired Air Drive colonel who spent many years flying as a weapons officer on F-4G and F-15E fighters.
Greater than a decade in the past, he mentioned, the U.S. navy developed a system to adapt an American-made GPS-aided weapon on a international plane utilizing a laptop computer with a GPS machine that related to the sensible pylon through Bluetooth.
“At present, the identical operate might in all probability be achieved utilizing a pill with a GPS attachment, and maybe industrial flight software program,” he added. “From there, the pylon would switch the information to the bomb itself.”
What number of have been constructed?
Boeing says on its web site that it has made greater than 500,000 JDAM kits for the US and allied international locations.
What number of are headed to Kyiv has not been made public, although it’s doubtless that 500-pound JDAMs might be supplied to begin with. It marks a big enhance in Ukraine’s precision-guided munition capabilities.
“It’s crucial,” mentioned Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian protection minister who advises the federal government.
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.