US Navy axes JSOW ER in favour of JASSM-ER purchase

摘要

The US Navy (USN) has cancelled plans to develop a powered, extended-range (ER) variant of the Raytheon AGM-154 Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW). Revealing the decision in the fiscal year (FY) 2022 budget request, the navy will instead procure a variant of Lockheed Martin's AGM-158B Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range (JASSM-ER) cruise missile to meet strike and offensive anti-surface warfare (OASuW) requirements. This so-called Navy JASSM will also leverage from the AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM). A planned evolution of the AGM-154 glide bomb, JSOW ER had been coveted by the USN to confer a capability to strike stationary land targets, mobile land targets, and moving maritime targets from outside the envelope of modern surface-to-air missile threats. The JSOW ER design incorporated a Pratt & Whitney TJ-150 turbojet engine, together with avionics upgrades and improved software, to enable operations at tactical ranges beyond 200 n miles. Additionally, the JSOW ER capability would support the navy's plan to field a new generation of network-enabled weapons.