In a move that has been brewing since early 2005, Lockheed Martin and Norway's Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace just entered into a Joint Marketing Agreement to market an air-launched version of Kongsberg's Naval Strike Missile, which had a pair of successful tests in California recently. This "Joint Strike Missile (JSM)" is designed to be carried and launched internally from the F-35 Lightning II fighter's internal bays (2 missiles), or external hardpoints. The 1,000-pound, stealth-enhanced NSM missiles are a generation beyond the USA's GM-8 Harpoon, with a 130 nautical mile operational range. The missile uses Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System (GPS/INS) guidance plus an imaging infrared seeker, in-flight data link and an automatic target recognizer (ATR). Then it strikes ships or land targets with a titanium warhead and programmable fuze.

One more thing I thought of... if it is of any value.

I would rather attack ships with this weapon instead of Harpoon.

Harpoon uses radar to lock up the target in terminal phase. Not very subtle.

This new suggested weapon is low observable and the imaging infared sensor for terminal phase is passive. Everything else being equal, I'll take this Kongsberg/LunchMeat solution. Especially considering that the Sheffield, Stark and that fancy Israeli warship in the recent Lebanon unpleasantness, had no clue they were under attack until it was too late.

(1) I won't place too much heed on the "narrow band" stealth arguments. That has never been anything more than a "theory" coined by F-35 opponents to belittle its capabilities. I say that for two reasons. The first being that a deep strike aircraft with X-band only stealth emphasis makes zero sense. This is because the vast majority of AWACs and SAM radars are not X-band but rather L-band, C-band and S-band units.

Is that a revelation? You are right about the last part. Big search radars are not X band traditionally for some of those systems.... and..... that is where the JSF comes up short in some areas... Yes it is L.O. but it is a design optimized for a narrow band....the band that has most of the weaponeering radars... X band.... It will have a L.O. advantage to those other bands at range... certainly better than a legacy... but JSF is not a near all aspect wide band stealth aircraft like the F-22. You did want the low price didn't you? That is JSF. It's stealth addresses the weaponeering radar sets not the big search ones. Which means those SAM sites with the big band stuff might get a knowledge of a JSF... but their weapons radars aren't going to be able to do much at any useful range. If someone is able to in the future field a big SAM radar that can weaponeer outside of X band, JSF is going to have to be very careful. Not a big deal for us as we have F-22. But for a JSF only force that faces big boy players, it may walk into risk. JSF is going to be the big buy for a lot of air arms for the next 20-30- years. So it would be kind of bad if certain weaponeering radar threats are fielded years in the future that obsolete it's L.O. profile on par with how the F-117 is going away. Add to that JSF is kinda tight on space. What gear comes with it doesn't have a lot of growth room for mods. And F-22 does. Now where being only a narrow band stealth aircraft can work against JSF is on long range interdiction where the big band radars pick up a wiff of JSF and vector a big SU to it where the big Su is silent except for it's IRST. That is a possibility. I don't think it is too likely as the big SU is going to stick out like an elephant if it even gets in the field of view of the APG-81. And IRST depends on the weather/atmosphere. Again though I would prefer JSF to any legacy jet.

(2) There are significant disadvantages to IIR seekers vs radar seekers. The most significant ones being that (firstly) it does not have quite the same acquisition range and/or all weather capability as a radar seeker. IR radiation -- be it mid-wave or long-wave or dual band -- suffers in bad weather or heavy atmospherics. This can be especially bad in foggy and rainy marine environments. While a radar seeker can be depended on (assuming it can overcome the EW environment) to find a ship at horizon range (35~45km) the same cannot be expected of an IIR missile's seeker. The second being that radars can determine range to the target whereas a passive seeker in general cannot do so or cannot do so with good accuracy. This will hurt the missile AI's decision making as to when to initiate terminal maneuvers such as pop up attacks of final approach weaving/jinking to confuse/avoid CIWS guns and missiles.

IIR on SLAM ER, the Israeli SPICE, JSOW C, etc is a close in terminal thing. For land strike on a fixed target, not an issue. ( See the SLAM-ER tests)... for moving targets ditto... It is "imaging" in the term there with these new digital seekers not unlike AIM-9X... and in this case, digital target I.D. is included. With the GMTI... ground moving target indicator on APG-81, one snapshot with that and you have a course and a speed. In the case of this weapon, it has a shorter acquisition range. Just like any naval missile... the farther you shoot the more chance of a miss. The range of the missile at extreme range would yes, not be the best thing for going against moving ships because of the amount of movement by the time the missile gets there etc... etc... ( is mid course guidance an option/upgrade with this weapon....?) A ship in harbor at long range would be no problem. A fixed land target at long range would be no problem. GPS/INS for fixed targets would be sub 4 meter accuracy anyway. Where the new wave of IIR tech comes in for fixed targets is if GPS aquisition fails... IIR does target recognition. Now where SLAM-ER is working on datalinking.... I don't know if this weapon has it. I don't think taking out a ship will be a problem for this thing. At shorter ranges inside 50 miles with the GMTI of JSF APG-81, when this weapon opens it's eyes on terminal it will be close. If the ship in question is depending on extreme fog or extreme sea state yeah I agree that can be an issue. That just means another weapon of choice. Super Hornet AESA did a recent test with a special data linked JDAM kit vs moving targets...It worked. That is certainly an option in the future. Now picture a wave of SDBs or JSOW 1a (unitary 500lb BLU-111 instead of bomblets in a GPS/INS only JSOW A ) .... JSOW 1a is the export JSOW.... datalinked via AESA from the host aircraft GMTI. I wouldn't give much hope to a ship surviving an APG-81 inspired killing. Just as JSF is going to be the main aircraft for 20+ years in an air arm... I expect weapons will evolve to fit the needs of varioius JSF partners.

(3) I believe that the best guidance a weapon can have is a combination of radar and IR guidance. Radar for bad weather and/or long range acquisition, IR for terminal refinement, counter measure rejection and if necessary for an ultra stealth silent mode. If the weapon is smart enough, if can have one radar emitter in a flight of two or more missiles providing the active advantage to the remaining passive missiles. If the emitter is shot down, a second missile in the flight can be designated as the heir and become the emitter if necessary, or the flight can proceed on passive guidance. The entire flight operates as a networked "swarm", approaching from different angles, performing different maneuvers, and using co-operative tactics, while sharing information via a datalink.

I agree there are a lot of solutions to the problem. However most naval threats out there are third rate. I don't think the full mix of JSF weapons will have much trouble plinking naval surface ships. As long as you have control of the air...surface ships will die and die hard. I think it is great that it started life as an anti-ship missile. However I think it holds more use taking out a variety of long range ground targets in the same manner as a SLAM-ER or JASSM. One of those targets for it to take out are the big non X band ground search radars that are an annoyance to JSF.

Is that a revelation? You are right about the last part. Big search radars are not X band traditionally for some of those systems.... and..... that is where the JSF comes up short in some areas... Yes it is L.O. but it is a design optimized for a narrow band....the band that has most of the weaponeering radars... X band.... It will have a L.O. advantage to those other bands at range... certainly better than a legacy... but JSF is not a near all aspect wide band stealth aircraft like the F-22. You did want the low price didn't you? That is JSF. It's stealth addresses the weaponeering radar sets not the big search ones. Which means those SAM sites with the big band stuff might get a knowledge of a JSF... but their weapons radars aren't going to be able to do much at any useful range. If someone is able to in the future field a big SAM radar that can weaponeer outside of X band, JSF is going to have to be very careful. Not a big deal for us as we have F-22. But for a JSF only force that faces big boy players, it may walk into risk. JSF is going to be the big buy for a lot of air arms for the next 20-30- years. So it would be kind of bad if certain weaponeering radar threats are fielded years in the future that obsolete it's L.O. profile on par with how the F-117 is going away. Add to that JSF is kinda tight on space. What gear comes with it doesn't have a lot of growth room for mods. And F-22 does. Now where being only a narrow band stealth aircraft can work against JSF is on long range interdiction where the big band radars pick up a wiff of JSF and vector a big SU to it where the big Su is silent except for it's IRST. That is a possibility. I don't think it is too likely as the big SU is going to stick out like an elephant if it even gets in the field of view of the APG-81. And IRST depends on the weather/atmosphere. Again though I would prefer JSF to any legacy jet.

There are a few sources. But this one puts it into language even I can understand.

http://www.ausairpower.net/Analysis-JSF-May-04-P.pdf

Axes to grind. Well that would also include Dr. Nelson and LM which have their own axes to grind ( i.e. JSF is everything one would ever need ). Koop may be a bit SU-27/3x phoebic but at the end of the day he is an engineer.