USA: Palletized Munition Flight Experiment

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theoderich
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USA: Palletized Munition Flight Experiment

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US Air Force looks to up-gun its airlift planes
So far, the Air Force has conducted two successful tests of “palletized munitions” from the C-130 and C-17, said Maj. Gen. Clint Hinote, the deputy director of the service’s Air Force Warfighting Integration Capability cell.

“We are in discussions right now about how do we proceed to prototyping and fielding,” he said during a May 27 event held by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Like the name suggests, palletized munitions are a collection of weapons strapped together onto a smart pallet, which would feed the munitions tracking and targeting information as they are dropped from an airlift platform. A request for information released in February characterized the technology as “a bomb bay in a box” that could allow mobility aircraft to stay out of a threat zone and launch a mass of standoff weapons.

“It’s all about capacity,” Hinote explained. “You’ve got to create enough capacity so that a long-range punch is really a punch. What we see is that no matter how big our bomber force is, the capacity that the joint force needs is always more and more. And so this is why we think that there is a real possibility here for using cargo platforms to be able to increase the capacity of fires.”

Air Force Special Operations Command conducted one demonstration of the technology on Jan. 28, when a MC-130J performed three airdrops of simulated palletized munitions at at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah.

“In this case, munitions stacked upon wooden pallets, or Combat Expendable Platforms (CEPs), deployed via a roller system,” the Air Force Research Laboratory said in a May 27 release.
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/05 ... ft-planes/


AFRL, AFSOC launch palletized weapons from cargo plane

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https://www.315aw.afrc.af.mil/News/Arti ... rgo-plane/


Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan
Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team

May 2016
1. Stand Off Arsenal Plane. For this capability development, the Air Force will continue to
partner with the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) on concepts utilizing long-range mission effects chains.
https://www.af.mil/Portals/1/documents/ ... 20Plan.pdf
Zuletzt geändert von theoderich am Di 24. Aug 2021, 21:55, insgesamt 1-mal geändert.
theoderich
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Registriert: So 29. Apr 2018, 18:13

Re: USA: Palletized Munition Flight Experiment

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USAF launches next phase of ‘arsenal airlifter’ project
The USAF Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation (SDPE) Office awarded Lockheed Martin a USD25 million contract to support the fourth phase of the service’s Palletized Munitions Experimentation Campaign (PMEC), under which airlifter such as the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III and Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules would be used as air-to-surface weapons delivery vehicles.

“Initial studies show that airlifters have the potential to deploy large quantities of Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range [JASSM-ER] missiles, providing a significant increase in long-range stand-off scale and complementing traditional strike and bomber aircrafts. This innovative approach enables warfighters to launch offensive operations from a greater number of airfields and engage a larger number of near-peer adversarial targets,” Lockheed Martin said on 28 October. “The overall goal of the experimentation is to develop a modular system to deliver air-launched weapons, leveraging standard airdrop procedures and operations. The system will have the ability to be rolled on and off multiple types of aircraft, including the C-17 and C-130.”

As noted by Lockheed Martin, Phase I of the PMEC effort successfully accomplished five high-altitude airdrops from an MC-130J Commando II-variant Hercules and a C-17 earlier this year using simulated weapons. During this effort, the USAF tested the suitability of launching JASSM-ER long-range cruise missiles from an ‘arsenal’ airlifter, so named on account of the large quantity of munitions it would be able to carry.
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news ... er-project


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https://www.facebook.com/AFResearchLab/ ... 9656366337


USAF flaunts ‘arsenal plane’ concept at Air Warfare Symposium (VIDEO) (29. Februar 2016)

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The US Air Force has offered an artist’s impression of the Pentagon’s “arsenal plane” concept in a video presented by service secretary Deborah Lee James at an Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Florida today.

As first seen in DARPA "system of systems" promotion released last year, the video depicts an aircraft with an eight-engine Boeing B-52 bomber wing with the body of a Lockheed Martin C-130 turboprop. The secretary's outtake shows the aircraft launching a barrage of networked Raytheon Small Diameter Bomb II glide bombs at mobile enemy radar warning and air defence targets.

This aircraft mash-up is relevant, because the Pentagon has not revealed whether its arsenal plane will be a re-purposed B-52 or a smaller cargo airplane like the C-130, or perhaps faster types like the C-17 or B-1B.

The cargo-bomber airplane concept appears to be unmanned since it doesn’t have a cockpit window, but does have a side cargo bay door. It’s not known if the arsenal plane – based on an old, repurposed aircraft – will carry weapon specialists, similar to current AC-130 gunships.

“Of course, this is still a concept so there’s various artist’s renditions or videos that may attempt to show what this is like, but there has been no decision, per se, on the type of aircraft that would become this arsenal,” says James on 26 February, when asked about the image. “But I offered it up as an example of some of the creative thinking that is not only technology driven, but sometimes involves repurposing existing aircraft as concepts of operation.”

USAF chief of staff Gen Mark Welsh offered some additional insight, saying the choice of platform will depend on what types of weapons it will carry. It also depends on the size of those weapons, he says, and if the aircraft needs to get into position quickly.
The project is funded in the Pentagon’s “advanced innovative technologies” budget under a new, mostly-classified programme labelled “alternative strike”. Almost $200 million has been dedicated to the project in fiscal year 2017, and flight demonstrations would start in late 2017 or 2018 and run through 2020.

In 2004, Boeing proposed a similar arsenal plane concept known as the B-1R – which stands for “regional” bomber.

According to a source, that concept would have greatly boosted the B-1B’s weapons capacity and installed an active electronically scanned array radar (AESA) to “attack multiple targets simultaneously in a jammed environment”. The aircraft’s engines would have been upgraded from the General Electric F101 to Pratt & Whitney F119 to achieve speeds of Mach 2.
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... re-422472/
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theoderich
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Registriert: So 29. Apr 2018, 18:13

Re: USA: Palletized Munition Flight Experiment

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Rapid Dragon conducts first system-level demonstration of palletized munitions

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https://www.afmc.af.mil/News/Article-Di ... munitions/

theoderich
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Registriert: So 29. Apr 2018, 18:13

Re: USA: Palletized Munition Flight Experiment

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theoderich
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Registriert: So 29. Apr 2018, 18:13

Re: USA: Palletized Munition Flight Experiment

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Tokyo considers long-range strike role for C-2 transport
The Japanese Ministry of Defense (JMOD) is considering using its Kawasaki C-2 tactical transports to launch missiles mounted on pallets from the aircraft’s cargo ramp.

The JMOD sees the C-2 potentially conducting stand-off strikes against high-value targets such as military bases and missile launch sites, according to the Japan Times, quoting JMOD sources.

The report says that Y3.6 billion ($25.4 million) has been budgeted in the 2023 financial year – which runs to 31 March 2024 – to explore the use of the C-2 for strike missions.

The JMOD envisages the C-2 air dropping pallets carrying the Lockheed Martin AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range (JASSM-ER).

Tokyo’s C-2 project could draw on the US Air Force’s (USAF’s) Rapid Dragon programme, which aims to give transports such as the Lockheed C-130 and Boeing C-17 the ability to air drop palletised munitions without the necessity of aircraft modifications.
Cirium fleets data indicates that the Japan Air Self-Defense Force has 18 C-2s. Of these, 16 are listed as serving the transport mission. One is used for experimental work, and another, designated RC-2, serves as an electronic intelligence aircraft.
https://www.flightglobal.com/defence/to ... 34.article
theoderich
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Registriert: So 29. Apr 2018, 18:13

Re: USA: Palletized Munition Flight Experiment

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Japan mulls long-range missiles on transport aircraft

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A Japan Ministry of Defense (MoD) spokesperson confirmed to Janes that the MoD and the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) “will develop and procure a stand-off missile launch system that can be equipped on transport aircraft”.

Such missile-equipped aircraft could be used by Japan to conduct long-range attacks on adversarial targets such as ships and missile launch sites. The use of transport aircraft would also obviate the need for Japan to acquire additional combat aircraft such as bombers for this role.

The programme is part of a plan by Japan to diversify its stand-off missile launch capabilities. According to the MoD spokesperson, Japan's Defense Buildup Program (DPB) stated that further diversification of missile launch capabilities is required to “effectively disrupt, defeat, and deter invasions against Japan”.
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/defe ... t-aircraft


Defense of Japan 2023
S. 23 hat geschrieben:Upgraded Type 12 Surface-to-Ship Missile [Provided by Nagoya Guidance & Propulsion Systems Works, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.]
https://www.mod.go.jp/en/publ/w_paper/w ... est_EN.pdf
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