Forum: F-35 Armament, Stores and Tactics

The B has the same internal payload space of the Raptors main bay, so if the -22 can carry 8, the B can carry 8.

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I wonder if SDBs can be stacked vertically in the F-35 bay. I can imagine ejecting a rack of four all at once that separate after they clear the bay.

F-35B holds three SDB1s or four SDB2s per bay. With the SDB1s, it's the same old four-pack, just with one left out because it clipped the corner a little bit. SDB2 (or perhaps its carrier) was reshaped slightly to take care of that.

I infer that this will result in a preference for the Marines' SDB arsenal to be all type 2 instead of a mix of types 1 and 2 like in the Air Force and Navy.

They cannot be stacked in the traditional sense due to the need to forcibly eject them from the bay, rather than simply letting them drop.

On the issue of SDB1/2 in the F-35B's bay, they could still carry both !&@ at the same time as long as the forward corner position has a SDB2.

SpudmanWP wrote:

They cannot be stacked in the traditional sense due to the need to forcibly eject them from the bay, rather than simply letting them drop.

On the issue of SDB1/2 in the F-35B's bay, they could still carry both !&@ at the same time as long as the forward corner position has a SDB2.

Like I said, I was thinking you could arrange them in a package of four that was ejected as one piece, which would then separate from each other after ejection. I don't think there is a problem weight-wise, I just don't know if the bay dimensions are large enough.

Sorry, I missed the whole "ejecting a rack of four all at once" part Wink

I wonder if the bay is tall enough for another layer of SBDs (BRU-61/SDB/SDB)?

Has 8x SDB block I been cleared yet for F-35A internal stores?

SDB block II is set for F-35 block IV?? IOC sometime around 2020 maybe?

Good thing there are F-15E to load block II SDB in the interim.

Will 8x SDBs be in F-35A/C IOC, yes.

Have they been cleared, no as weapon separation tests are just starting to get started.

SDB II December 31, 2011 SAR

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/logistics_m ... 202011.pdf (276Kbs)

"Mission and Description
Small Diameter Bomb Increment II (SDB II) is a joint interest United States Air Force (USAF) and Department of Navy (DoN) Aquisition Category ID program, with the Air Force (AF) as the lead service. SDB II provides the warfighter the capability to attack mobile targets from stand-off, through weather. The threshold aircraft for the AF is the F-15E and the threshold aircraft for the DoN are the F-35B and F-35C. Objective aircraft include the F-16, F/A-18E/F, F-22A, F-35A, B-1B, B-2, B-52, A-10, and MQ-9. SDB II will be compatible with the Bomb Rack Unit (BRU-61) miniature munitions carriage, the CNU-660/E carriage system storage container, the Common Munitions Bit and Reprogramming Equipment (CMBRE), and the Joint Mission Planning System (JMPS). The SDB II program will develop and field a sing weapon storage container for the USAF and a dual weapon storage container for the DoN.

Executive Summary
In 2011, the program made significant progress in executing the development and qualification program to field the SDB II system. The Critical Design Review (CDR) was completed on January 20, 2011. The Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Engineering concluded that the CDR is complete and the SDB II Program is “well situated to continue into the System Capability and Manufacturing Process Demonstration Phase.”

Raytheon Missile Systems (RMS) began flight testing in FY 2011 with an open air Control Test Vehicle release to demonstrate aerodynamic performance of the weapon. System qualification testing of the SDB II tri-mode seeker (millimeter wave, imaging infrared, and semi-active laser) began in late FY 2011 and over 100 hours of Captive Flight Tests against fixed and moving targets have been completed. Warhead lethality testing against heavy armored targets demonstrates weapon effectiveness requirements are being met. The SDB II program is on track for a June 2013 System Verification Review and an August 2013 Milestone (MS) C.

The SDB II program has defined a viable path forward to account for the known F-35 schedule impacts. The FY 2013 President's Budget (PB13) incorporates savings from actual contract option pricing, delayed start of reliability testing and realization of efficiencies gained through competition. PB13 reflects a funding profile to execute the current estimated F-35B and F-35C initial fielding dates of September 2020. Once the F-35 follow-on development schedule is finalized, the SDB II Acquisition Program Baseline (APB) will be updated.

The approved SDB II baseline program was originally planned for F-35 Block 3.X operational flight program (OFP) integration. Since the SDB II contract award there have been further delays to the F-35 System Development and Demonstration (SDD) program. As a result, SDB II integration will be accomplished as a follow-on integration to F-35 SDD. Due to these F-35 delays, the SDB II F-35B and F-35C initial fielding dates stated in the APB will slip from the current threshold date of June 2019 to an estimated initial fielding date of September 2020, resulting in an SDB II APB schedule breach. This drives a change to the full-rate production decision from October 2019 to June 2020 resulting in an additional APB schedule breach. Air Force F-15E fielding is not impacted and remains on track for July 2016.

The Milestone Decision Authority approved MS B on July 29, 2010, and the subsequent APB was signed on October 8, 2010. On August 6, 2010, the Defense Acquisition Executive signed an Acquisition Decision Memorandum authorizing the program to enter Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) and certified the program pursuant to section 2366b of title 10, United States Code. A $450.8 million Fixed Price Incentive Firm-type EMD contract was awarded to RMS, Tucson, Arizona on August 9, 2010. RMS will complete the design, development, weapon integration, and test for the joint interest SDB II program. F-15E integration is being accomplished by Boeing, St. Louis, Missouri through the F-15 Development Systems Program Office using Air Force SDB II funding. The F-35B and F-35C aircraft integration contract will be awarded to Lockheed Martin, Fort Worth, Texas by the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Joint Program Office using Department of Navy SDB II funding.

There are no significant software-related issues with this program at this time."

Stobiewan,

The Hughes Wasp minimissile was doing swarm coordination back in the early 1980s as part of Assault Breaker using a weapon that looked like a Maverick but was the size of a Hellfire and carried as many as 12 at a time in a common pod. The Wasp employed a pack datalink and blip motor to loop back and forth overtop an armored column until all movers were morted.

The tactical assumption was that these weapons would be last ditch containment devices to pre-nuclear contain a massive Soviet breakout of OMG into the rear areas of NATO with uncertain target positions and identification (the weapon could also mass read with it's MMW seeker to provide some target classification) even as the launch aircraft (anything from F-111 to Alphajet) were either dumb or hadn't stuck around to be shot at.

And so putting the brains of the engagement in the robotic seeker was a natural. Worked pretty good too, though it scared the Army quite a bit.

What wasn't openly acknowledged at the time was that we already knew the Soviets were working on Drozhd for AfG and Arena was on the horizon as a two APS capable of potentially shooting down inbound shots.

i.e. Sophistication in on-shot attack planning is not -only- about front and back stopping a convoy conveniently locked in a narrow traffic lane but also about dealing with the realities of attrition as the designated victim in fact shoots back.

Orbit and reattack planning is not something that even the SDB-II can do unfortunately because it doesn't have the glide reserves once it commits to terminal and this plus the lack of reliable TOF shot clock relay is what made the USAF in fact reject the GBU-39 when it was first trialed back in 2009 (?) or so.

Of course, by the time a GBU-12 is engaged by a terminal interceptor the chances of the target surviving the 500lb wardet are pretty slim anyway but if your principle conception of CAS is that of sniper nests in building windows and back alley mortar men, things like 'limited blast effect' can have unintended consequences once you start to face real threats with real defense as the APS is shaping up to be a multiplatform HVA terminal protector.

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Well, presumably you could distribute the processing - have an initial snapshot passed between the weapons to establish what they're looking at then assign a zone for consideration to individual weapons, breaking the weapons in flight into groups for each zone. Having crunched the problem down into just a couple of bombs looking at a relatively small sector of the picture, you then have to have some sort of protocol to flag up weapons going US or targets disappearing so you could then prompt a re-assignment if need be.

Thinking out aloud here from a totally uninformed position but I'm guessing there's ways to do it if the weapons can share the information they see.
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Hunting datalinks have characterized the Wasp, LOCAAS and LAM programs. Using technology similar to the cellphone it's just not that hard to achieve coordination synergies.

But the SDB is not powered and so any utility to the D/L on the GBU-53 (at least in CAS) is likely solely one of alleviating target servicing compression by providing the WSO a chance to use staggered launch with a gentle designation turn away from the target to keep himself oriented as he shifts lased aimpoints so that each succeeding SALH coded weapon descends 'at the whistle' of the datalink from it's own altitude separated stacking in a constellation of weapons high perched over the target area.

Imagine a pinned unit being rolled up by combined fires from mortar or RCL on a ridgeline and RPG and AR in surround sound envelopement while themselves out in the back of beyond with limited cover and perhaps a stalled convoy perimeter as burning vehicle casualty condition to deal with.

Or another scenario where they are in a dense collaterals as builtup zone and quite possibly cannot even -see- who is shooting them up, from a couple streets over.

With either of these casepoints, you cannot just designate an FSCL beyond which to pound anything which moves.

And given the threats are bounding up in scattered groups of 2-3 with perhaps 100m between them as they are now well versed in infantry tactics in a hostile CAS environment too, you may not have time to make multiple passes before the overrun or fadeaway.

If the WSO can get the weapons off and over the target to minimize remaining TOF, he can shift the Sniper crosshairs a smidgeon (or even perhaps allocate memory presets to the pod gyro) and due the equivalent of a text message across the datalink to say "Okay #3, open your eyes and dive on this sparkle code!" with the hopes that he can shoot from the hip with a proximity airburst that puts enough fragmentation as blast overtop the individual threats _as he finds them_ to take out at least a sizeable fraction of the target discretes in one rolling engagement.

Of course you are still talking about tossing away the cost of the unused MMW and IIR systems on the lowest of the low valued infantry targets. But even so may well be easier, safer and less expensive than opening a can of CBU-87 and 'hoping for the best'.

For APS protected vehicles and perhaps some naval targets, this is not the case as you cannot get close enough, even with WCMD to tap all the threats at tactical interval spacing even as you shift to SFW. But the SDB are also going to have a LOT harder time than sub-horizoned missiles getting past the mid and inner zone defenses because they are frankly too slow.

KPl.

Galoot, I never knew vehicles could be morted??? Wow that Soviet breakout of OMG must be some scary s**t! You are a true gem Galoot!

Forum: F-35 Armament, Stores and Tactics

Raytheon SDB II [F-35 Simulated Video]