An October 7 notice, reported by Air & Space Forces Magazine, lists missile software updates, testing, test asset repair and failure review boards among the planned tasks. It describes an anticipated contract award.
The B-52 can already carry up to 20 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, the weapon on which LRASM is based. Their similar dimensions raise the prospect of a comparable anti-ship missile load.
“A handful of B-52s will be able to deliver more weapons on maritime targets and do so over much longer ranges than the Navy’s carrier-based aircraft per day,” retired Air Force Col. Mark Gunzinger told the magazine. A former B-52 pilot, Gunzinger is director of future concepts and capability assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
The planned work follows the Air Force’s June disclosure that a B-2A Spirit had used LRASM to strike a decommissioned amphibious transport vessel during a Pacific exercise. That was the first U.S. military acknowledgment of the B-2’s use of the missile.
Naval News reported the possibility of integrating LRASM onto the B-52 in 2019. The idea then languished for several years, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine.
“The Air Force’s bomber force will be our military’s predominant maritime strike force, considering the number of anti-ship cruise missiles they can carry per sortie and deliver over intercontinental ranges, if necessary,” Gunzinger said. “And LRASMs will give our bomber force the ability to strike moving targets at sea with unprecedented accuracy.”
Gunzinger said the capability would let commanders attack maritime targets using bombers launched from airbases in areas with fewer threats. He said it would also provide an option that does not put aircraft carriers at risk.
Lockheed Martin spokesperson Scott Swofford declined to give further details about the integration effort and referred questions to the Pentagon. NAVAIR and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center did not immediately respond to the magazine’s requests for comment.
“As a precise, stealthy and survivable cruise missile, LRASM provides multiservice, multiplatform, and multimission capabilities for offensive anti-surface warfare,” Swofford said. “By leveraging Lockheed Martin’s expertise in successful cruise missile productions, LRASM brings low-risk and long-term, flexible capabilities to the warfighters’ anti-surface warfare environment that no other inventory weapon provides.”
Source: Air & Space Forces Magazine.
