US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is moving away from GPS-guided bombs and wants industry to come up with alternatives. The elite leadership of the US military believes that the future will not be lenient with this type of guidance for precision bombs.
“[We are] expecting the future operating environment not to have GPS readily available,” said Lieutenant Colonel Matt Foertsch during the Special Forces Industries Conference on May 18. The officer leads the Precision Strike Team within SOCOM's Office of Acquisitions for Fixed Wing Aircraft Systems.
The GPS (Global Positioning System) works through a constellation of satellites. For military GPSs, satellites controlled by the US Government are used, which was also one of those responsible for creating the system.
Despite GPS being something that was found in all smartphones a few years ago, the system also fueled a revolution in precision air , as explained by the portal. Flightglobal. The greatest symbol of this is Boeing's JDAM (t Direct Attack Munition) bombs.
This is a kit that transforms common bombs into precision weapons quickly and cheaply. According to the portal, more than 400 thousand gravity bombs were transformed into guided weapons through kits acquired by more than 30 countries including Israel, Chile, Italy and Taiwan. The newer versions can still receive a laser sensor, another type of guidance for bombs, used since the Vietnam War.
While it is one of the main weapons of the US and other nations, SOCOM believes that the best days of GPS-guided bombs are behind us. Russia and China, America's main adversaries, have successfully tested satellite-destroying missiles in recent years. In addition, data from GPS satellites can also experience various types of electronic interference.
In 2011, Iran forced the landing of a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel drone operated by the USAF for surveillance of Iranian airspace. The falsification of GPS data was suggested as a possible explanation for the incident, which is still seen with some controversy.
With these and other vulnerabilities in mind, SOCOM is asking the defense industry to come up with options for replacing GPS in its precision weapons.
“Right now, we largely do laser targeting”, observes Foertsch. "But we're looking at future capability that the industry has pushed in the optical realm, or automated target recognition."
“Automated target recognition” he mentioned is a military term for artificial intelligence systems that can identify targets based on appearance. A variation of this concept already fuels technologies such as facial recognition, which are increasingly present in everyday life.
The problem with laser-guided bombs is the distance to the target. For this type of guidance, something or someone – troops on the ground, drones or other manned aircraft – needs to get close enough to illuminate the target until the bomb hits.
Apart from this factor, the laser can also suffer degradation according to weather conditions, further shortening the required distance to the target (or preventing the attack depending on the situation).
“We are looking for greater reach and distances of removal”, adds Lieutenant Colonel Foertsch.
According to the website, Mark Gunzinger of the Mitchell Institute, a retired US Air Force Colonel, came to a similar conclusion to SOCOM. In a 2021 article, the former military man argued that the USAF should focus on developing so-called “Stand-In” munitions. These precision weapons could be dropped from an aircraft and flown independently to a target 50-250 nautical miles (93-463 km) away.
To that end, Foertsch notes that SOCOM is developing two miniaturized cruise missiles that incorporate features such as gliding wings and electric propulsion. However, these replacements are likely years away from full-scale implementation.
In this way, GPS munitions can continue to play a relevant role during conflicts in so-called “permissive environments”, where adversaries lack advanced air defense or electronic warfare capabilities.
