Long range killer emerges from the shadows
The latest version of the AGM-158 JASSM has been unveiled at the US Air & Space Forces Association’s annual Air, Space & Cyber Conference. The new AGM-158 XR (eXtreme Range)…
September 17, 2024
The latest version of the AGM-158 JASSM has been unveiled at the US Air & Space Forces Association’s annual Air, Space & Cyber Conference. The new AGM-158 XR (eXtreme Range) offers significantly increased range, thanks to a fuselage stretch which allows greater fuel capacity. Some reports suggest that the new variant could have a range that should approach or exceed that of the Tomahawk cruise missile.
John Hill, Lockheed Martin’s general manager for air dominance and strike weapons said: “It stretches the existing JASSM and LRASM family, that outer mould line, to give us more fuel, and that buys us the range that we need, and that the warfighters need.”
Existing JASSM variants provide most of the USAF’s conventional deep strike capabilities, but the ranges over which stand-off weapons will have to operate is increasing, reducing the usefulness of the original baseline AGM-158A JASSM with its 230 mile maximum range, and even the 500 mile range of the AGM-158B/B-2 JASSM-ER, and the developmental AGM-158B-3 and AGM-158D.
Lockheed Martin developed the AGM-158 XR concept to offer significantly increased standoff attack range that can be rapidly produced and delivered to the US military. It is part of a wider effort adapting and evolving existing weapons to counter China’s anti-access/area-denial capabilities – an effort that has become a top priority for the US.
Developed from the fully-qualified AGM-158B/C/D JASSM-ER weapon system and the evolutionary AGM-158C LRASM (Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile), the AGM-158 XR offers a low-risk solution at a fraction of the cost of a new start programme. The new weapon takes advantage of the established and mature JASSM and LRASM production line, and an existing supply chain. The AGM-158 XR will leverage the existing JASSM software architecture, allowing it to use the same mission planning infrastructure and to benefit from spiral enhancements, inline upgrades and fixes as they become available for earlier JASSM variants.
By implementing a few relatively minor structural changes, XR can offer significantly greater range, while reducing development and production time. The AGM-158 XR has the same trapezoidal cross-section and low-observable shaping and thereby maintains the stealth and precision strike capabilities of previous models, and should be capable of being carried by any platform now carrying the JASSM-ER – with the exception of the F-16.
The AGM-158 XR unveiled at the conference wore a semi-gloss black finish, like that seen on some AGM-15BC LRASM test rounds. This is reportedly intended to reduce the weapon’s visual signature. The new variant is likely to have a datalink, allowing individual weapons to communicate in the networked battlespace, providing co-operative swarming capabilities and allowing missiles to co-operatively work together to prosecute a target set.
Lockheed Martin refers to the new variant as the AGM-158 XR, and not as the JASSM XR. A previous JASSM-XR had a six foot fuselage stretch and canard foreplanes and offered similar range performance, but was not proceeded with.
