The Air Force says it intends to task Raytheon [RTN] soon to supply 450 AGM-65 Maverick surface-attack missiles with a new laser guidance section as a near-term means to attack moving targets.
Service officials say they anticipate awarding a contract to Raytheon next month for the missiles, which are known as Laser Mavericks. They will be designated the AGM-65E2, according to Air Combat Command (ACC).
The new Laser Mavericks will consist of existing back-ends from earlier versions of the missile fitted with a new front end that houses a modern laser-guidance package, according to the company. The back end houses the motor.
The Air Force says it expects to receive the first of the new Laser Mavericks in early to mid 2009, roughly 16-19 months after contract award.
Raytheon manufactured AGM-65E Laser Mavericks for the Navy in the mid 1980s for use by the Marines Corps, but has not built them for a long time, so it would need to restart its production line, Dorsey Price, senior manager for business development for Raytheon’s Strike Weapons, told sister publication Defense Daily in a recent interview. The Navy still has some original-vintage Laser Mavericks in its inventory.
“Over the years, the Marines, especially, have really liked the Laser Maverick because of its ease of use and pinpoint accuracy,” he said. “It is really good for close air support with troops in contact because you can be so pinpoint with this weapon.”
The new front end will leverage advancements in laser guidance since the original seeker design, Price said. The missile is a “cost-effective” option, he said.
“It is going to be as good as and, in some situations, it will probably be better [than the original] because its detectors can maybe pick up the laser a little bit further out,” he said.
He cautioned, however, that this still needs to be validated in live-fire testing.
Price said he thinks renewed interest in urban close air support (CAS) is the “biggest driver” in the Air Force’s interest in the laser variant.
“Maverick always wins the urban CAS scenarios because it is such a handy weapon and you can limit its destruction,” he said. “If you want to take out a small truck on a street, you can do it without wiping out all of the buildings around it.”
The Air Force says it will use foreign military exchange credits to fund the acquisition of the new Mavericks. These credits are earned when Raytheon takes older Maverick missiles returned by the Air Force and upgrades them for international sales.”The use of the exchange credits provides the Air Force buying power toward more capable modernized Maverick missiles/components needed to satisfy our mission requirements,” the Air Force wrote in a statement provided to sister publication Defense Daily.
“This allows the Air Force to leverage combat proven performance without need of additional funding.”
Price said Raytheon started the credits program in 1994. He said the Air Force has enough credits in its account to cover the non-recurring startup costs of the line as well as “probably one or two lots of production.”
Already Air Force officials say they are using a small number of original-vintage Laser Mavericks borrowed from the Navy in operations in U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility that includes Afghanistan and Iraq.
“We have employed now in theater 25 Laser Mavericks,” Maj. Gen. Mark Matthews, ACC’s director of plans and programs, said Oct. 10 at the 33rd Air Armament Symposium in Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.
All told, the Air Force acquired 50 Laser Mavericks from the Navy and intends to replenish the missiles that it borrowed as it receives its new assets, an ACC spokeswoman told sister publication Defense Daily.
The stock of missiles from the Navy “is a stop-gap until we get to Laser JDAM next spring,” Maj. Gen. David Eidsaune, the Air Force’s program executive officer for Weapons, told Defense Daily Oct. 10. Laser JDAM is a version of the Boeing [BA]-manufactured, GPS-guidance aided Joint Direct Attack Munition with a laser seeker mounted in its nose so that the bomb can hit moving targets (Defense Daily, Oct. 17).
The Air Force anticipates fielding the Laser JDAM in May 2008. The munition has successfully struck targets moving up to 70 miles per hour in flight tests, Eidsaune said during his presentation Oct. 10 at the Florida symposium.
Once Laser JDAM is in the field, the Air Force says it will use it and the new Laser Mavericks against moving targets in the near term. Weapons like the Small Diameter Bomb Increment II system are envisioned in the longer term to attack fleeting surface objects.
The Air Force is the executive service for the Maverick. Price said the Marines have also expressed an interest in the new Laser Maverick. Further, he said he anticipates that international customers will come forward for this variant once the Air Force program moves forward.
“Raytheon is interested in supporting the users,” Price said of the Laser Maverick for the Air Force. “We want him to have the best equipment out there and the Mavericks have always been a great system. We are making them even better and now he is going to have another weapon in his quiver. We are happy to do that.”
The timing of the Air Force’s decision is right, since Raytheon is currently in the midst of its final production tranche, Lot 7, for AGM-65H/K missiles, Price said. Moving forward with Laser Maverick will keep the production line from shuttering.
The Maverick has been a mainstay surface-attack weapon in the U.S. military’s arsenal since the missile’s introduction into service in the early 1970s. It is also in the inventories of 36 foreign militaries, according to Raytheon.
“Maverick has been around for a long, long time, but it is still a very effective weapon,” Price said. “Every year they say Maverick is dead, but it keeps coming back.”
Currently the missile has two warhead options: a 125-pound shaped-charge and a 300-pound blast-penetrator-fragmentation device.
Price said Raytheon is also investigating hyperbaric warheads for its portfolio of weapons, including Maverick, that would provide a “dramatic increase” in explosive effect in the same size class of warhead.
In addition to the front ends with laser guidance, Maverick missiles currently carry either charged-coupled-device (CCD) seekers, television/CCD seekers or infrared guidance, according to the company’s fact sheet.
Price said the company is also exploring dual-mode and tri-mode seekers that incorporate a millimeter wave for all-weather use.