September
11, 2008: Israel has ordered a thousand
of the new U.S. 250 pound Small Diameter Bomb (SDB). These will cost about
$77,000 each. It believed that Israel
wants this weapon not just for its precision, and low explosive (50 pounds)
power, but also its ability to penetrate six feet of concrete. This would make
it useful to take out Hezbollah bunkers and rocket storage sites in southern Lebanon.
It might also prove useful in an attack on Iranian nuclear weapons facilities.
Two years
ago, the U.S. Air Force finally got the SDB into service. On October 5th, 2006,
two F-15E fighter bombers used the SDB in Iraq. The SDB was supposed to enter service
in 2005, in the wake of the 2004 introduction of the 500 pound JDAM. But there
were many technical problems with the SDB. That's because this was not just
another "dumb bomb" with a GPS guidance kit attached. The SDB had a
more effective warhead design and guidance system. It's shape is more like that
of a missile than a bomb (70 inches long, 190 millimeters in diameter), with
the guidance system built in. The smaller blast from the SDB results in fewer
civilian casualties. Friendly troops can be closer to the target when an SDB
explodes. While the 500, 1,000 and 2,000 pound bombs have a spectacular effect
when they go off, they are often overkill. The troops on the ground would
rather have more, smaller, GPS bombs available. This caused the 500 pound JDAM
to get developed quickly and put into service.
But what the air force really wants is to
equip the B-1 with SDBs, as this bomber could carry as many as 216 of them. The
new F-22 and F-35 warplanes are stealthy and normally only carry their bombs
internally. This limits how many they can carry, but with the SDB, an F-22 can
carry eight of them. The Israeli F-15sand 16s could easily carry 24 SDBs. The
SDBs are carried on a special carriage, which holds four of them. The carriage
is mounted on a bomber just like a single larger (500, 1,000 or 2,000) pound
bomb would be. For Israel, this allows each fighter-bomber to take out more
targets per sortie.
The SDB is basically an unpowered missile,
which can glide long distances. This makes the SDB even more compact, capable
and expensive. JDAM (a guidance kit
attached to a dumb bomb) only cost about $26,000. The small wings allow the SDB
to glide up to 70-80 kilometers (from high altitude.) SDB also has a hard front
end that can punch through several feet of rock or concrete, and a warhead that
does more damage than the usual dumb bomb (explosives in a metal casing.) The
SDB is thus the next generation of smart bombs.
There was
never any point in building a 250 pound dumb bomb, as they would be too
inaccurate to be useful. But it made sense to merge the guidance kit and the
bomb itself. But the superiority of guided bombs is such that the next
generation of heavier (500-2000 pound) smart bombs will probably be like the
SDB.
