Laser-guided Bomb
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A laser-guided bomb (LGB) is a guided bomb that uses semi-active laser guidance to strike a designated target with greater accuracy than an
unguided bomb An unguided bomb, also known as a free-fall bomb, gravity bomb, dumb bomb, or iron bomb, is a conventional or nuclear aircraft-delivered bomb that does not contain a guidance system and hence simply follows a ballistic trajectory. This describe ...
. First developed by the United States during the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, laser-guided bombs quickly proved their value in precision strikes of difficult point targets. These weapons use on-board electronics to track targets that are designated by laser, typically in the infrared spectrum, and adjust their glide path to accurately strike the target. Since the weapon is tracking a light signature, not the object itself, the target must be illuminated from a separate source, either by ground forces, by a pod on the attacking aircraft, or by a separate support aircraft. Data from the 28,000 laser guided bombs dropped in Vietnam showed that laser-guided bombs achieved direct hits nearly 50% of the time, despite the laser having to be aimed out the side window of the back seat of another aircraft in flight. Unguided bombs had an accuracy rate of just 5.5% per mission, which usually included large numbers of the munitions. Because of this dramatically higher precision, laser-guided munitions can carry less explosive and cause less
collateral damage Collateral damage is any death, injury, or other damage inflicted that is an incidental result of an activity. Originally coined by military operations, it is now also used in non-military contexts. Since the development of precision guided ...
than unguided munitions. Today, laser-guided bombs are one of the most common and widespread guided bombs, used by many of the world's air forces.


Development

Laser-guided weapons were first developed in the United States in the early 1960s. The
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
issued the first development contracts in 1964, leading to the development of the
Paveway Paveway is a series of laser-guided bombs (LGBs). ''Pave'' or PAVE is sometimes used as an acronym for ''precision avionics vectoring equipment''; literally, electronics for controlling the speed and direction of aircraft. Laser guidance is ...
series, which was used operationally in the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
starting in 1968. Originally the project began as a surface to air missile seeker developed by Texas Instruments. When TI executive Glenn E. Penisten attempted to sell the new technology to the Air Force, Col. Joe Davis Jr. inquired if it could instead be used as a ground attack system to overcome problems US aircraft were having with accuracy of bombing in Vietnam. Col. Davis had already witnessed a test of the Army's new laser target designator made by Martin Marietta, but no seeker existed to make use of the system. Davis had already performed tests from the back seat of an F-4 Phantom and proved that it was possible to accurately target objects from a moving aircraft. His mock testing proved correct, and during further testing with live seekers it took just six attempts to improve the seeker accuracy from 148 feet to within 10 feet of the target. This greatly exceeded the design requirements. It was commissioned by the United States Air Force in 1967 and successfully completed a combat evaluation in 1968. The system was sent to Vietnam and performed well. Without the existence of tracking pods the Weapon Systems Officer (WSO) in the back seat of an F-4 Phantom II fighter bomber used a hand-held Airborne Laser Designator to guide the bombs, but half of the LGBs still hit their targets despite the difficulties inherent in keeping the laser on the target. LGBs proved to offer a much higher degree of accuracy than unguided weapons, but without the expense, complexity, and limitations of guided
air-to-ground missile An air-to-surface missile (ASM) or air-to-ground missile (AGM) is a missile designed to be launched from military aircraft at targets on land or sea. There are also unpowered guided glide bombs not considered missiles. The two most common p ...
s like the
AGM-12 Bullpup The AGM-12 Bullpup is a short-range air-to-ground missile developed by Martin Marietta for the US Navy. It is among the earliest precision guided air-to-ground weapons and the first to be mass produced. It first saw operational use in 1959 on th ...
. The LGB proved particularly effective against difficult fixed targets like bridges, which previously had required huge loads of "dumb" ordnance to destroy. It was determined that 48% of Paveways dropped during 1972–73 around
Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...
and
Haiphong Haiphong ( vi, Hải Phòng, ), or Hải Phòng, is a major industrial city and the third-largest in Vietnam. Hai Phong is also the center of technology, economy, culture, medicine, education, science and trade in the Red River delta. Haiphong wa ...
achieved direct hits, compared with only 5.5% of unguided bombs dropped on the same area a few years earlier.From Saigon to Desert Storm
/ref> The average Paveway landed within 23 feet of its target, as opposed to 447 feet for gravity bombs. The leap in accuracy brought about primarily by laser guidance made it possible to take out heavily defended, point objectives that had eluded earlier air raids. The most dramatic example was the Thanh Hoa Bridge, 70 miles south of Hanoi, a critical crossing point over the Red River. Starting in 1965, U.S. pilots had flown 871 sorties against it, losing 11 planes without managing to put it out of commission. In 1972 the “Dragon’s Jaw” bridge was attacked with Paveway bombs, and 14 jets managed to do what the previous 871 had not: drop the span, and cut a critical North Vietnamese supply artery. In the wake of this success, other nations, specifically the Soviet Union, France, and Great Britain, began developing similar weapons in the late 1960s and early 1970s, while US weapons were refined based on combat experience. In October 2010, India developed its first Sudarshan laser-guided bomb with the help of IRDE, a lab of
DRDO The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) (IAST: ''Raksā Anūsandhān Evam Vikās Sangaṭhan'') is the premier agency under the Department of Defence Research and Development in Ministry of Defence of the Government of India, ...
.India develops its first Laser-Guided Bomb
/ref> The
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
and other air forces are now seeking to upgrade their LGBs with
GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...
guidance as a back-up. These weapons, such as the USAF Enhanced Guided Bomb Unit (part of the Paveway family), use laser designation for precision attacks, but contain an
inertial navigation system An inertial navigation system (INS) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity (dire ...
with GPS receiver for back-up, so that if the target illumination is lost or broken, the weapon will continue to home in on the GPS coordinates of the original target.


See also

*
Bombe Guidée Laser Bombe Guidée Laser (BGL) laser-guided bombs were developed by Matra (now MBDA) starting in 1978. The guidance system had to work using the same principles as the US Paveway guided bombs. The guidance kits were intended as modifications to existing ...
* Joint Direct Attack Munition *
KAB-500L The KAB-500L is a laser-guided bomb developed by the Soviet Air Force, entering service in 1975. It remains in service with the CIS and post-Soviet Russian Air Force. The KAB-500L is a standard FAB-500 general-purpose bomb, which has a nomin ...
* List of laser articles *
Missile guidance Missile guidance refers to a variety of methods of guiding a missile or a guided bomb to its intended target. The missile's target accuracy is a critical factor for its effectiveness. Guidance systems improve missile accuracy by improving its P ...


References


Citations


Bibliography

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External links


Laser-guided bombs page – FAS
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laser-Guided Bomb Guided bombs category:Laser ranging category:American inventions