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BAE SYSTEMS awarded an $11.7 million contract to integrate Broach onto JSOW

30 Apr 2001

Ref: 061/2001

BAE Systems has been awarded an $11.7 million contract for integration of its BROACH warhead on the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) for the United States Navy. The first production contract is scheduled for FY03, and the planned procurement is 3000 units over the life of the JSOW programme.

BROACH is multi-stage warhead technology, consisting of a large penetrating shaped-charge in front of a conventional follow-through bomb. The warhead provides blast/fragmentation effectiveness, as well as hard target penetration, and can be scaled to fit a wide variety of bombs and missiles.

BAE Systems RO Defense will subcontract with Thales Missile Electronics (TME) and the UK Ministry of Defence's DERA (Defence Evaluation and Research Agency) for the JSOW BROACH integration effort. Much of the integration work, as well future production effort, will take place at U.S. facilities in Pennsylvania, California, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

BROACH is a development that came out of the 1991 Gulf War, when it became apparent that the then practice of having weapons specifically designed for defeating hardened, "intermediate," and soft ground targets placed stress on the long logistical chain, especially given the evolving nature of that war. A good portion of the developmental work on BROACH was completed during the UK's Storm Shadow CASOM (Conventionally Armed Stand Off Missile) programme, and on the JSOW and CALCM (Conventionally-armed Air Launched Cruise Missile) Foreign Comparative Test programmes.

Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Arizona will integrate the BROACH warhead into the JSOW Unitary weapon (JSOW-C). Unitary is the third variant in the GPS-guided JSOW family of weapons. The first JSOW variant (JSOW-A) was initially used in combat in January 1999. JSOW has become an integral part of U.S. combat plans as it enhances aircrew survivability by allowing weapon delivery beyond most enemy air defences. Weapon modularity allows for the integration of several different warheads while maintaining common air-vehicle components.

JSOW-A is currently in full-rate production and JSOW-B is in final stages of development before operational testing. The JSOW-A and JSOW-B carry the BLU-97 (Combined Effects Munition) and BLU-108 (Sensor Fused Weapon submunition) respectively. The JSOW-C Unitary will carry the BROACH warhead. In addition to the BROACH penetrator warhead, JSOW-C will incorporate an Imaging Infrared terminal seeker and Autonomous Targeting Acquisition (ATA) technology that provides precision terminal guidance.

Captain Bob Wirt, Programme Manager for Conventional Strike Weapons (PMA-201), said, "BROACH is a new technology that has matured to a point that it has become the right solution for the JSOW Unitary requirement. It provides unmatched flexibility in terms of cost, logistics and lethality for the warfighter."

"BROACH is a wonderful example of industry and government working in concert to recognize a problem and devise a superior solution that places the armed forces of allies in a much better position to successfully conduct their campaigns in as short a time as possible," said John Anderson, Sales and Commercial, RO Defence.