Bloomberg.com December 11, 2001
Boeing Co. JDAM Most Widely Used Precision Bomb In Afghanistan
Washington, Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- A Boeing Co. satellite- guided munition is the most widely used smart bomb in the two- month-old war in Afghanistan, according to defense officials.
Of the 12,000 bombs the U.S. has dropped, 7,200 or 60 percent were precision-guided, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke told reporters today. Of these, 4,600 were Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or Jdams. The rest were laser-guided bombs or satellite-guided Raytheon Co. Tomahawk cruise missiles.
These figures give perspective to the two errant Jdams that killed three U.S. soldiers and five Afghan allies and wounded at least 24 in incidents Nov. 25 and Dec. 5, said an analyst.
``These are very good odds,'' said John Pike, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based research group. ``It's an radical improvement in accuracy over previously unguided, or dumb bombs,'' he said of a weapon designed to fall within 30 feet to 40 feet of its intended aimpoint.
``I presume substantially more of these have fallen away from their intended aimpoint, but these incidents are the only two that have had grim consequences,'' said Pike, a long-time skeptic of weapons programs.
The Jdam is an unguided gravity bomb that's been equipped with a Boeing Co. guidance system at a cost of $20,000 per bomb.
The Jdam first was used in the NATO campaign. B-2 stealth bombers dropped 651 early on when Serb air defenses and bad weather prevented the use of laser-guided bombs.
``The B-2 with JDAM demonstrated the highest rate of target destruction of any aircraft/weapon combination used in the war,'' wrote Philip Coyle, then the Pentagon's top tester, in a post-war assessment. ``Once it has been successfully launched, it can reliably reach and attack targets anywhere in the world.''
Restocking Inventory
Assembled by Boeing Co. at its St. Charles, Missouri, facility with Honeywell Inc., Minneapolis, the top subcontractor, the guidance kit entered full-production in March.
The Air Force had an inventory of roughly 10,000 Jdam kits at the beginning of the Afghan conflict and wants more, given the number dropped, said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
``We're looking at Jdam production, where we have been using them to great effect but also in very large numbers, and we're looking how to build those inventories back up as rapidly as possible,'' Wolfowitz said today.
The Air Force ordered 434 more kits from Boeing October 31, for delivery by March 2002 and another 600 on November 5 for delivery this month.
``We have to make sure there is no gap in the availability of those munitions,'' said Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim in a interview. ``Since we don't know the rates at which we are going to expend those munitions -- because we don't know the nature of the operation just yet -- we've got to hedge.''
Boeing shares dropped 40 cents to $36.90 in trading of 3.8 million shares.
Copyright 2001 Bloomberg.com
