July 22, 2026: American B-2 long-range bombers have been configured to carry the AGM-158C LRASM/Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles. Other aircraft capable of using LRASM are the B-1, F-15E/EX, F-18, F-25, and P-8. The missiles can also be launched from a VLS cell or, possibly, a HIMARS vehicle. The 1.25 ton LRASM carries a half-ton warhead and a range of nearly 400 kilometers. Cost per missile is over $1 million, and the missile, in flight, looks like a drone with swept-back wings and one upright tailfin.

Seven years ago, B-1 bomber units began receiving the LRASM, which was essentially a new version of the existing AGM-158 JASSM/Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile. This was recognized in 2015 when the air-launched version of LRASM was given the official designation of AGM-158C. This followed a 2014 decision to deploy the LRASM research project as a stopgap until a more advanced successor to the Tomahawk cruise missile was ready in the mid-2020s. The Air Force adapted other bombers and fighter-bombers to use LRASM. These included the F-18.

LRASM was based on JASSM missiles, which are 1,045 kg weapons that are basically 455 kg JDAMs, i.e., GPS-guided bombs with a small turbojet added. JASSM was designed to target enemy air defenses or deep targets in heavily defended enemy territory. LRSAM was based on JASSM ER, the version with the longest range, 930 kilometers, but because of the additional sensors and electronics, LRASM weighs 1,100 kg with a 450 kg warhead and a range of 560 kilometers. The air-launched version used from ships or land has a booster rocket added to get the LRASM moving and high enough into the air so that the turbojet engine can take over.

LRASM began as a research project in 2009 to develop a stealthier cruise missile. LRASM was part of an effort to develop autonomous hunter-killer missiles that can seek out targets without remote control and in the midst of enemy countermeasures, electronic and otherwise. The LRASM underwent its first field test in 2013, when one was launched from a B-1B bomber and sent toward three destroyer-sized unmanned ships that were moving about. LRASM flew via GPS waypoints for several hundred kilometers and then began flying a search pattern, seeking electronic or visual signs of one of the target ships. One was found, and LRASM, armed with an inert warhead, hit it.

LRASM was not only equipped to seek out targets in a general area of several thousand square kilometers but was also fitted with electronics to resist GPS jamming and other anti-missile electronic defenses carried by warships. LRASM also has a highly accurate INS inertial guidance system that cannot be jammed and serves as a backup to GPS. The ultimate LRASM design will also incorporate stealth features, a special shape, and largely passive sensors. The original LRASM development model was basically an existing long-range bomb, JASSM ER, with a much-improved guidance system, and it turned out to work.

One reason JASSM was selected as the basis for LRASM was that it had undergone a tortuous development process. Work on JASSM began in the late 1990s and was expected to enter production by 2002, but the entry was delayed by 2 years. Then there were more delays, lots of delays. From 2006 to 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense was on the verge of canceling the $6 billion JASSM program. Lobbying, pleading, large orders from Australia and South Korea, and the growing possibility that the missile would be useful against Iranian, Chinese, or North Korean air defense systems gave the program a few more lives.

JASSM is stealthy and uses GPS and terminal infrared guidance to zero in on heavily defended targets such as air defense sites. The terminal guidance enables the missile to land within three meters of the aiming point. If there were a war with North Korea, for example, JASSM would be essential to taking out enemy air defenses, or any other targets that have to be hit early in a war before air defenses can be shut down. This capability apparently attracted the South Koreans, who now have F-15K aircraft capable of carrying JASSM.

JASSM was designed to handle the most modern Russian surface-to-air missiles, which are also being sold to China. North Korea has older air defense systems and can't afford the newer Russian SAMs. But even these older air defenses can be dangerous and are best addressed with long-range missiles. So, there was a need for a missile like JASSM.