The Stormbreaker bomb is capable of tracking and destroying moving targets in all kinds of weather conditions from ranges as far as 40-nautical miles.

The US Air Force is arming its entire fleet of F-35s with the cutting edge Stormbreaker bomb capable of tracking and destroying moving targets in all kinds of weather conditions from ranges as far as 40-nautical miles.

In development for years, the now operational Stormbreaker arms the F-15E and F/A-18 and is currently testing on all three variants of F-35s. Beginning as the Small Diameter Bomb II, the Stormbreaker has been a pioneering and ground-breaking, air-launched weapon engineered with a “tri-mode” seeker enabling it to track targets with infrared, laser and millimeter wave technology. The weapon is also one of the early iterations of how two-way data links can be engineered into an air dropped weapon to better enable in-flight course correction and an ability to hit moving targets.

For these reasons, Stormbreaker is described by Raytheon engineers as a “network-enabled weapon that can engage moving targets in all weather conditions using its multi-effects warhead and tri-mode seeker.” This kind of progress with Stormbreaker is part of why the Air Force just awarded Raytheon with a deal to build as many as 1,500 of the bombs. The arrival of the weapon in greater numbers follows a year of 28 successful test drops in 2023 and the expansion of the Stormbreaker across the Pentagon’s fleet of attack aircraft.

The Stormbreaker is engineered with warhead and explosive versatility as well, as it can leverage shape-charge jets and better fragmentation technologies to both penetrate tanks and improve lethality. The weapon can also use various kinds of “fusing” technologies such as a delayed fuse enabling the bomb to penetrate a target before detonating to maximize explosive effect.

Warrior Maven

👏👏👏👍👍👍😎😎😎

Recon they’ve tried them in Ukraine?

"Smart" bombs are getting smarter all the time. The ones we used in the 1970s took two planes to deliver- - - -one to paint the target with a laser, and another to actually drop the bomb to home in on the laser signal. Hanoi used to surround military targets with high rise apartment houses, and our guys had to thread the needle between them to get a good hit. Talk about an increased pucker factor for the laser guy!

Bet Bi-duh and the Democrat National Socialist/Communist Regime would have loved to leave a bunch of these in Afghanistan, for the people who want us dead.




GR

Hey Happy Camper

Wonder how many Israel ordered?

For the F-35 these small diameter bombs greatly increase the number of bombs carried in the internal bays so as to maintain low observability (Stealth).

Increasing precision makes the 250lbs as effective as larger bombs that might have less precision.

With the fused sensors and AI of the F-35 and the tri mode seeker head with 2 way data link those little bombs are sub MOA all day.

My second oldest grandson has his name on one of the F35's as a crew chief. I'm certainly proud of him.

I don’t suppose we’re getting a bulk discount?

30% of the time F-35's are mission ready. These should help.

30% should concern a lot of people.

Bravo.👏

Closer to 50 per cent inoperative and that’s not even in. Combat environment lol. Billions in cost over runs.

But the f 35 helped the US defeat goat herders in Afghanistan

I still kind of like the f22 raptor. I wish they could have updated the electronics and stuff on it with some of the f35 money and built a few more 22s. I wish they'd not have tried to make the f35 work for everything and just made it the best fighter. The marines should have done their own thing.

Bb

These are the future.[video:youtube]https://youtube.com/shorts/cQ_njcYE_Ks?si=GKvrFt1jO_-Tm084[/video]

For you guys who graduated from the school advance military studies of the "TOP GUN MAVERIC"...

GAO drops the bombshell on combat readiness of F-35.