No civilian casualties…low collateral damage…restrictive rules of engagement. Today, the air-ground attack mission is more demanding than ever. The Paveway IV precision-guided weapon produced by Raytheon UK is already the Royal Air Force’s smartest bomb. A proposed series of improvements should make it even more flexible and accurate.
“The RAF has released more than 1,000 Paveway IVs in three years, achieving close to 100 percent reliability,” claimed T.J. Marsden, chief engineer for the weapon, in a recent briefing at Raytheon UK’s Harlow facility. He described how a five-year development program from 2003 added dual-mode guidance and sophisticated fuzing to a 500-pound warhead. Paveway IV entered service in November 2008 on the RAF’s Harrier GR.9s, which have since been retired. It was soon also qualified on the Tornado GR.4, and integration on the RAF’s Eurofighter Typhoons is nearly done. The weapon will also be carried by the UK’s F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters, externally or internally. It is replacing the RAF’s earlier generation of Paveway II smart bombs, which have warheads twice the size. This means that more weapons can be carried, and more targets covered, per sortie
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“The RAF has released more than 1,000 Paveway IVs in three years, achieving close to 100 percent reliability,” claimed T.J. Marsden, chief engineer for the weapon, in a recent briefing at Raytheon UK’s Harlow facility. He described how a five-year development program from 2003 added dual-mode guidance and sophisticated fuzing to a 500-pound warhead. Paveway IV entered service in November 2008 on the RAF’s Harrier GR.9s, which have since been retired. It was soon also qualified on the Tornado GR.4, and integration on the RAF’s Eurofighter Typhoons is nearly done. The weapon will also be carried by the UK’s F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters, externally or internally. It is replacing the RAF’s earlier generation of Paveway II smart bombs, which have warheads twice the size. This means that more weapons can be carried, and more targets covered, per sortie
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