Navy’s Tiny 5-Pound Missile Packs a Big Punch
- 02.28.14
- 6:30 AM
If the Pentagon is going to increasingly rely on drones to carry out precision attacks, the military is going to need access to smaller munitions than one-ton JDAMs.
While most defense contractors are designing drones to accommodate the already-existing larger weapons, the Navy has taken the opposite approach with Spike, a five-pound, 25-inch mini-munition which it likes to call “the world’s smallest guided missile.”
Relying on commercial-off-the-shelf components such as cellphone camera technology, Spike can be launched from the air or the ground and is being developed so it can even be shoulder-fired.
And at sea, it can fill a particular gap against the increasing threat of small boat swarms, the fast attack craft (FAC) and fast inshore attack craft (FIAC), according to the Navy.
“With a number of targets coming at you, there’s potential for some to get through,” said Greg Wheelock, a Navy Weapons Division technical lead, in a statement. “Spike is a good option for taking out those leakers. It’s not going to blow those boats out of the water but it can take the boat out of commission.”
“What we lack in warhead size is compensated for in accuracy, and we have the ability to put that charge where it will have the most effect,” he said.
That precision could go a long way toward curbing criticism of U.S. drone policy where too often innocent civilians are among the casualties.
At the moment, however, Spike is completely conceived, designed, developed and tested in-house, so Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) engineers could learn on the job. But the Navy says 10 positive test results show it could easily make its way to the battlefield.
The Navy says developing Spike in-house has resulted in better advancement response times and significantly lower costs, at about $50,000 a piece.
“We own the technical drawing package, we own all the intellectual property, we have the capability to develop it, take it out on the range, test it, come back and tweak it, and go back to test it and do limited rate production right in our own backyard,” Wheelock said. LINK
Image: U.S. Navy
Posts
