International Maritime Defence Show 2011 (377-22)

The KAB-500Kr (Correctable air bomb - 500 kg) is an electro-optical TV-guided

fire and forget Fire-and-forget is a type of missile guidance which does not require further external intervention after launch such as illumination of the target or wire guidance, and can hit its target without the launcher being in line-of-sight of the targe ...

bomb developed by the

Soviet Air Force The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...

in the 1980s. It remains in service with the CIS and various export customers. The KAB-500Kr is analogous to the American

GBU-15 The Rockwell International Guided Bomb Unit 15 is an unpowered glide weapon used to destroy high-value enemy targets. It was designed for use with F-15E Strike Eagle, F-111 'Aardvark' and F-4 Phantom II aircraft. The GBU-15 has long-range maritime ...

weapon. It uses a standard Soviet/Russian FAB-500

general-purpose bomb A general-purpose bomb is an air-dropped bomb intended as a compromise between blast damage, penetration, and fragmentation in explosive effect. They are designed to be effective against enemy troops, vehicles, and buildings. Characteristics ...

, with a nominal weight of , as a warhead, adding a

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

seeker and guidance fins to turn it into a guided, unpowered glide bomb. The seeker employs a gimballed daylight television imaging sensor under a wide angle glass dome. Unlike the earlier US GBU-8 HOBOS and

AGM-65 Maverick The AGM-65 Maverick is an air-to-ground missile (AGM) designed for close air support. It is the most widely produced precision-guided missile in the Western world, and is effective against a wide range of tactical targets, including armor, ...

which employed contrast lock technology, the -Kr series guidance system employs Scene Matching Area Correlation technology more akin to the US Navy DAMASK seeker or

Tomahawk A tomahawk is a type of single-handed axe used by the many Indigenous peoples and nations of North America. It traditionally resembles a hatchet with a straight shaft. In pre-colonial times the head was made of stone, bone, or antler, and Eur ...

DSMAC. This results in the ability to attack low contrast targets by exploiting the contrast of nearby terrain features or objects. The bomb is 305 cm (10 ft) long and weighs , of which is a hardened, armor-piercing warhead capable of penetrating up to 1.5 metres (5 ft) of reinforced

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...

. The weapon's seeker can lock onto a target at ranges of up to , depending on visibility. The KAB-500-OD variant is equipped with a fuel-air explosive warhead. The technology of KAB-500Kr is also used for larger bombs, such as KAB-1500Kr based on the 1500 kg class FAB-1500 iron bomb. There is also the training bomb KAB-500Kr-U. The KAB-500S-E is a version with satellite guidance.

References

{{Reflist Cold War aerial bombs of the Soviet Union Aerial bombs of Russia Guided bombs Modern thermobaric weapons of Russia Military equipment introduced in the 1980s