ERAM: Cruise Missile For Ukraine Will Have Anti-Ship Capabilities
The ERAM cruise missile, which is being developed to strengthen Ukraine's capabilities, may receive anti-ship functionality along with a new guidance system. This is reported by The War Zone, citing a request from the US Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC for short). The agency is looking for hardware for the project, such as GPS receivers, homing systems, navigation units, radio and data link solutions, and other capabilities to add operational capabilities to the aircraft munition.
The future stages of ERAM development include the integration of various guidance systems and related equipment to ensure effective operation in the absence of satellite navigation. The request on the specialized portal specifies the details: the Air Force wants to be informed of "the price and schedule for the delivery of 10 QuickSink guidance system prototypes in a form factor for integration into ERAM." Quicksink is an American project for a cheap and mass-produced anti-ship munition based on the eponymous dual-mode homing warhead and a modified air bomb with a JDAM correction kit.
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The Quicksink munition scenario involves a long-range launch from a fighter jet using GPS coordinates to initially hit the target area.
After that, the homing head comes into play, searching for, classifying and engaging the target. The two-component seeker of the anti-ship munition is equipped with a radar homing system and an infrared camera that determine the length of the captured objects by comparing it with the patterns stored in the database. This approach ensures that the desired target is to be hit in a cluster of different types of objects.
Once the target is captured, the guidance system determines the flight parameters and adjusts the course to hit the side of the vessel below the waterline, which would result in maximum damage and flooding.
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The ERAM Project
The development of a project for an inexpensive and easy-to-manufacture precision aerial munition specifically for Ukraine was announced in July last year.
According to the requirements, the developers have to offer a solution similar in parameters to a cruise missile, which would be placed on an aircraft platform and reach a subsonic speed of 200 m/s, covering a distance of at least 250 nautical miles (463 km). The munition should be equipped with a warhead weighing about 500 pounds (250 kg), which would have an adequate penetrating and fragmentation effect. It should be equipped with a fuze with several modes of operation.
However, the key to the project is the affordability of the system, which can be quickly scaled up within two years to 1000 munitions per year.
More information about possible project participants and the parameters of the long-range munition can be found in the article "ERAM: US to develop long-range munition for Ukraine".