Die US Air Force will soon have a new weapon in her arsenal. She has at the manufacturer Raytheon 1,500 Glide Bombs GBU-53/B StormBreaker ordered. The costs for this are $320 million.
Although this is a glide bomb, in the future it could AGM-65 Maverick substitute. The StormBreaker is superior to the air-to-ground missile in almost every respect.
Can be used in all weather conditions
The StormBreaker has one 48kg heavy warhead. This has both explosive and fragmentation effects and can therefore be used against many targets. According to Raytheon, this includes infantry, main battle tanks, patrol boats, and unfortified structures. Due to the glide wings, which it folds out after being dropped, it has a range of up to 110 Kilometer against static and 72 Kilometer against moving targets. For comparison, the Maverick has a range of about 22 Kilometer.
The special thing about the StormBreaker is Tri-mode seeker head. This enables use in all weather conditions. This is how the glide bomb should find and hit its targets in bad weather, darkness and smoke. The seeker has a millimeter wave radar, a semi-active laser and an infrared sensor. The latter is a new development and uncooled. This reduces the production costs and the complexity of the seeker head, which allows for faster production.
StormBreaker finds targets for itself
The glide bomb can independently by GPS fly to the previously defined target area. There all 3 modes of the seeker work together to Identify and prioritize goals. The target data can be updated up to 38 times per minute via a data connection. After the bomb has been dropped and the glide bomb has identified several targets, the pilot or the operations center can assign the desired target or overwrite the selection made by the bomb.
Thanks to the new seeker head, the glide bomb could do the same driving targets pursue and fight with a high hit rate. This is the StormBreaker as a weapon to enforce a No-Drive-Zone suitable. A plane could drop the StormBreaker from a safe distance. This flies to the no-drive zone defined by GPS and only attacks targets there if movement or heat is detected in a stationary vehicle (e.g. because the engine was running just before). As a result, enemy forces could not use night and bad weather to drive through the no-drive zone unnoticed to attack a target on the other side.
Up to 28 bombs on board
When designing the StormBreaker, care was taken to ensure that as many of them as possible can be transported. One F-15E can take off with up to 28 pieces. For comparison: It could only transport 6 pieces of the Maverick air-to-surface missile.
StormBreaker on an F-15E
© Raytheon
Die F-22 and F-35 can accommodate 8 StormBreakers and 2 AIM-120 air-to-air missiles in the weapons bay. Using the F-35’s external weapon mounts, it can carry a total of 24 StormBreakers – 8 internal and 16 external. The US Navy also plans to use the StormBreaker on the F/A-18 to use.
