Navy to Deploy New Fighter-Launched Weapon

By Kris Osborn

To identify and destroy moving targets at sea, a technology, giving fighters such as the F/A-18 Super Hornet a vastly increased attack envelope against a wider range of threats.

Called the AMG-154 Joint Standoff Weapon, or JSOW, the Raytheon-built attack bomb uses GPS technology, inertial measurement unit guidance technology and an imaging infrared seeker in the final phase of flight to find and attack enemy targets.

While historically used as a land-attack weapon launched from air-platforms such as fighter jets, new technology allows the JSOW weapon to use the LINK 16 data-link to identify and kill moving maritime targets at sea from ranges as far at 70-miles, Navy officials told Scout Warrior.

“The JSOW C-1 Moving Maritime Target capability allows the weapon to fly to an updated cue from its controlling platform, then transition to an image recognition/matching process enabled by an onboard database of ship characteristics stored in the weapon (database selected in mission planning or in the cockpit),” Navy spokeswoman Lt. Amber Lynn.

The existing variant, called the JSOW C, is now being upgraded to include the new variant called the JSOW C-1.

The new JSOW C-1 combines the proven, precision, standoff land attack capabilities from JSOW C, with the new, state-of-the-art Link 16 data link to also engage moving maritime targets.

The JSOW C-1 is the only variant currently in production, and is an upgrade to the JSOW C Unitary variant which uses an autonomous Imaging Infrared seeker with Automatic Target Acquisition for terminal guidance, she added.