WASHINGTON – The Pentagon is considering a Boeing proposal to produce Ukraine with low-cost, small precision bombs fitted onto abundantly available rockets, allowing Kyiv to strike far behind Russian lines because the West struggles to fulfill demand for more arms.
U.S. and allied military inventories are shrinking, and Ukraine faces an increasing need for more sophisticated weapons because the war drags on. Boeing’s proposed system, dubbed Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), is certainly one of a couple of half-dozen plans for getting latest munitions into production for Ukraine and America’s Eastern European allies, industry sources said.
Although the US has rebuffed requests for the 185-mile range ATACMS missile, the GLSDB’s 94-mile range would allow Ukraine to hit priceless military targets which were out of reach and help it proceed pressing its counterattacks by disrupting Russian rear areas.
GLSDB could possibly be delivered as early as spring 2023, in response to a document reviewed by Reuters and three people acquainted with the plan. It combines the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) with the M26 rocket motor, each of that are common in U.S. inventories.
Doug Bush, the U.S. Army’s chief weapons buyer, told reporters on the Pentagon last week the Army was also taking a look at accelerating production of 155 millimeter artillery shells – currently only manufactured at government facilities – by allowing defense contractors to construct them.
The invasion of Ukraine drove up demand for American-made weapons and ammunition, while U.S. allies in Eastern Europe are “putting a number of orders,” in for a spread of arms as they provide Ukraine, Bush added.
“It’s about getting quantity at an affordable cost,” said Tom Karako, a weapons and security expert on the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He said falling U.S. inventories help explain the frenzy to get more arms now, saying stockpiles are “getting low relative to the degrees we wish to keep readily available and positively to the degrees we’re going to want to discourage a China conflict.”
Karako also noted that the U.S. exit from Afghanistan left a lot of air-dropped bombs available. They can’t be easily used with Ukrainian aircraft, but “in today’s context we should always be on the lookout for revolutionary ways to convert them to standoff capability.”
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon is considering a Boeing proposal to produce Ukraine with low-cost, small precision bombs fitted onto abundantly available rockets, allowing Kyiv to strike far behind Russian lines because the West struggles to fulfill demand for more arms.
U.S. and allied military inventories are shrinking, and Ukraine faces an increasing need for more sophisticated weapons because the war drags on. Boeing’s proposed system, dubbed Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), is certainly one of a couple of half-dozen plans for getting latest munitions into production for Ukraine and America’s Eastern European allies, industry sources said.
Although the US has rebuffed requests for the 185-mile range ATACMS missile, the GLSDB’s 94-mile range would allow Ukraine to hit priceless military targets which were out of reach and help it proceed pressing its counterattacks by disrupting Russian rear areas.
GLSDB could possibly be delivered as early as spring 2023, in response to a document reviewed by Reuters and three people acquainted with the plan. It combines the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) with the M26 rocket motor, each of that are common in U.S. inventories.
Doug Bush, the U.S. Army’s chief weapons buyer, told reporters on the Pentagon last week the Army was also taking a look at accelerating production of 155 millimeter artillery shells – currently only manufactured at government facilities – by allowing defense contractors to construct them.
The invasion of Ukraine drove up demand for American-made weapons and ammunition, while U.S. allies in Eastern Europe are “putting a number of orders,” in for a spread of arms as they provide Ukraine, Bush added.
“It’s about getting quantity at an affordable cost,” said Tom Karako, a weapons and security expert on the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He said falling U.S. inventories help explain the frenzy to get more arms now, saying stockpiles are “getting low relative to the degrees we wish to keep readily available and positively to the degrees we’re going to want to discourage a China conflict.”
Karako also noted that the U.S. exit from Afghanistan left a lot of air-dropped bombs available. They can’t be easily used with Ukrainian aircraft, but “in today’s context we should always be on the lookout for revolutionary ways to convert them to standoff capability.”
