Future Weapon Technology

The GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb – the future of ultra-surgical air strikes.

Since the days of the first Gulf War, when it became clear to the world that precision air strikes would be the “go to” option for the opening rounds of nearly any theater scale military operations, the technology of precision guided munitions has increased rapidly.  We have witnessed bombs being guided into their targets by lasers, GPS, and even a human watching through a camera on the nose of the weapon.  Once the concept of precision guidance was no…

If you are a regular here at Future Firepower then I am sure you have heard of the MOAB or Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, coined the Mother of All Bombs. The MOAB is an eight ton non-nuclear weapon with a 450 foot blast radius. What you might not have heard is that Russia has recently unveiled the “Father of All Bombs” which is said to have a 900 foot blast radius, double what the MOAB boasts. Until the Russian military unveiled the FOAB the MOAB was the…

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There are many different types of Thermobaric weapons, it is the destructive concept that renders Thermobarics different than conventional high explosives.  Rather than a simple bomb with high explosives in the warhead, thermobaric weapons, or fuel-air bombs, are predominantly filled with either an aerosol or powder of a high explosive mixture.  The bomb has 2 charges, the first to blow away the casing and release the aerosol cloud, and the second to detonate the cloud.  This 2 stage method renders the size of the blast to be drastically larger in diameter than conventional…

The US air-force put a stop to Al qaeda’s heavy weapons training real quick in the video below. Several insurgents were killed in this air attack during a training mission in May of 2007. Anti aircraft fire and other munitions can be seen during the surveillance of the al-qaeda base. There was speculation that al-qaeda was training for an attack on coalition forces. Thanks to good intelligence, the plans of these insurgents were foiled before they were given a chance!

U.S. military officials in Baghdad said that coalition forces killed an estimated 10 to 14 insurgents

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The video below shows the multiple Launch Rocket System developed by Lockheed Martin in action in slow motion. The Guided MLRS (GMLRS) rocket is being developed under an international cooperative program with the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany. GMLRS will have a global positioning system aided inertial guidance package integrated in a rocket body. Additionally, small canards on the guided rocket nose will add basic maneuverability to further enhance the accuracy of the system.

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For more information about the MLRS or Multiple launch…

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC)

The Viper is a standoff munition guided by GPS and laser-guidance. The Viper is primarily used in missions that require a flexible angle of attack, either steep or shallow. The weapon is produced by Northrop Grumann’s Land Combat Systems Facility in Alabama. This particular Viper Standoff munition requires a man to lase the target either from the UAV itself where the missile is fired from, or from the ground. The Viper is similar to the Hellfire missile used in the Predator UAV by the US air-force. The Vipers warhead is smaller than the…

Imagine having the ability to strike anywhere in the world within one hour. The X-51 is an amazing hypersonic cruise missile that travels 600 miles in just ten minutes (approximately 3600 MPH or Mach 5).

Compared with the Tomahawk Missile which travels at a mere 550 MPH, the X51 gives the US the ability to strike enemies quickly before they can evade. As U.S. Strategic Command’s deputy commander Lt. Gen. C. Robert Kehler puts it, the goal of the X51 is “to strike virtually anywhere on the face of the Earth within 60 minutes.”

The power of this weapon…

Manufacturers: Raytheon [NYSE: RTN] and General Dynamics [NYSE: GD]

The Excalibur is the newest development in Military artillery technology and precision guided munitions. Also known as the M982 ER DPICM (Extended Range Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions) Projectile, the Excallibur is a smart artillery round that has an integrated GPS tracking system along with fins and rockets that give it accuracy and range that has never been attainable with other artillery shells. The artillery round can travel over 25 miles and still hit a target 10 meters wide! The Excalibur artillery shell can deliver a…

Manufacturer: Textron Inc. [NYSE: TXT]

The CBU-97 sensor-fuzed weapon is an extremely potent anti-armor cluster bomb. It combines so many different technologies of lethality and has so many moving parts for a bomb that initial observes questioned whether it would even work. Basically, the CBU-97 is dropped over a column of enemy armor, the bomb “clusters” and releases it’s sub-munitions, which are like smaller little bombs themselves. Each sub-munition is slowed by a parachute, and then each sub-munition fires 4 hockey puck sized “skeets” over the target area. The skeets contain an infrared targeting system and a copper EFP (explosively…

This video depicts the teamwork capability of the US military, coupled with today’s advanced weapon technology. The video is filmed by a Predator UAV on surveillance patrol in Iraq. The Predator observes insurgents firing a AA gun (anti-aircraft artillery) mounted on the rear of a pick-up truck. The insurgents attempt to hide the vehicle and then they flee and hide themselves. The Predator catches everything. The man operating the Predator calls in an A-10 Warthog airstrike, which strafes the tree-line where the insurgents were hiding. Then, the Predator itself takes out…