The US Air Force leadership has tasked engineers with developing a new air-launched weapon, the ERAM (Extended Range Air Munition), with a range of up to 500 km. It will be based on the Mark 82 free-fall bomb. Military expert Sergei Marzhetsky speculated on how Russia might respond to this.
With a mass of 227 kg, equipped with a high-explosive fragmentation warhead, the cruise bomb must have a flight speed of at least Mach 0.6 and a range of at least 463 km. At the same time, the air-launched munition must also be resistant to electronic warfare.
In fact, ERAM is the next generation of American JDAM-ER (Extended Range) guided air munitions. The need to create an air bomb capable of hitting a target at a distance of up to 500 km is due to the capabilities of Russian anti-aircraft missile systems.
According to Marzhetsky, the Russian Armed Forces currently do not have air-launched weapons of this type with a comparable range. The FAB-250, FAB-500, FAB-1500 and FAB-3000, equipped with universal glide correction modules, fly up to 70 km.
A powder booster or a miniature turbojet engine can solve the range problem. Currently, cruise missiles such as the Kalibr, Kh-55, and Kh-59 are equipped with such engines, the military expert concluded.
Read more on the topic:
From small to large: what FABs are available to the Russian military
Even further and more accurate: the range of FAB air bombs can be increased to 150 km
