Boeing proposal to provide 100 mile strike weapon to Ukraine

| November 29, 2022

Boeing provided a proposal to the Pentagon to supply the GLSDB to Ukraine. This is their “Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb” developed by Boeing Company and by SAAB AB. The U.S. and its western allies are seeing their stockpiles being depleted, so have looked at ways to efficiently continue to supply Ukraine. This is a proposed system that would be delivered in the Spring of next year at the earliest. This system would help Ukraine hit targets further than what they have been hitting to date.

From Reuters:

Although the United States has rebuffed requests for the 185-mile (297km) range ATACMS missile, the GLSDB’s 94-mile (150km) range would allow Ukraine to hit valuable military targets that have been out of reach and help it continue pressing its counterattacks by disrupting Russian rear areas.

GLSDB could be delivered as early as spring 2023, according to a document reviewed by Reuters and three people familiar with the plan. It combines the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) with the M26 rocket motor, both of which are common in U.S. inventories.

Doug Bush, the U.S. Army’s chief weapons buyer, told reporters at the Pentagon last week the Army was also looking at accelerating production of 155 millimeter artillery shells – currently only manufactured at government facilities – by allowing defense contractors to build them.

The invasion of Ukraine drove up demand for American-made weapons and ammunition, while U.S. allies in Eastern Europe are “putting a lot of orders,” in for a range of arms as they supply Ukraine, Bush added.

“It’s about getting quantity at a cheap cost,” said Tom Karako, a weapons and security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He said falling U.S. inventories help explain the rush to get more arms now, saying stockpiles are “getting low relative to the levels we like to keep on hand and certainly to the levels we’re going to need to deter a China conflict.”

Karako also noted that the U.S. exit from Afghanistan left lots of air-dropped bombs available. They cannot be easily used with Ukrainian aircraft, but “in today’s context we should be looking for innovative ways to convert them to standoff capability.”

Although a handful of GLSDB units have already been made, there are many logistical obstacles to formal procurement. The Boeing plan requires a price discovery waiver, exempting the contractor from an in-depth review that ensures the Pentagon is getting the best deal possible. Any arrangement would also require at least six suppliers to expedite shipments of their parts and services to produce the weapon quickly.

A Boeing spokesperson declined to comment. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Tim Gorman declined to comment on providing any “specific capability” to Ukraine, but said the U.S. and its allies “identify and consider the most appropriate systems” that would help Kyiv.

GLSDB is made jointly by SAAB AB (SAABb.ST) and Boeing Co (BA.N) and has been in development since 2019, well before the invasion, which Russia calls a “special operation”. In October, SAAB chief executive Micael Johansson said of the GLSDB: “We are imminently shortly expecting contracts on that.”

According to the document – a Boeing proposal to U.S. European Command (EUCOM), which is overseeing weapons headed to Ukraine – the main components of the GLSDB would come from current U.S. stores.

The M26 rocket motor is relatively abundant, and the GBU-39 costs about $40,000 each, making the completed GLSDB inexpensive and its main components readily available. Although arms manufacturers are struggling with demand, those factors make it possible to yield weapons by early 2023, albeit at a low rate of production.

GLSDB is GPS-guided, can defeat some electronic jamming, is usable in all weather conditions, and can be used against armored vehicles, according to SAAB’s website. The GBU-39 – which would function as the GLSDB’s warhead – has small, folding wings that allow it to glide more than 100km if dropped from an aircraft and targets as small as 3 feet in diameter.

Reuters and Militarnyi have additional information. From Youtuber Suchomimus:

Category: Big Pentagon, International Affairs, Russia, Ukraine

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MustangCPT

Price discovery waiver? We need to audit all of the aid being provided. This is starting to look like a money laundering operation.

QMC

I’ve been on that line of thinking for close to a year now.

Burisma. Bidens. Ukraine. Zelenskyy. No corruption here. Please just keep sending more money. Nothing to see here…..

Hack Stone

As long as the Coke keeps flowing, the hookers are available, and 10% goes to the Big Guy, things will not not improve.

5JC

I think it is unlikely, but not improbable, they will the stones to give it to them. Once the Ukraine starts launching counter-fire attacks to targets inside of Russia to eliminate the TBM threat things will get really unstable.

The low grade, off the book attacks they have done so far inside of Russia hitting fuel depots and military support facilities are easily explained away by Putin’s government. People will notice a 2 ton missile whizzing by in the sky and the resultant effects.

Old tanker

At what point does the govt decide that spending money is really driving inflation here? It’s pretty much as if they decided to get economic guidance from Alice in Wonderland. Just wtf is zelenski spending the money on that he has gotten to date?

Anna Puma

So the West is the Arsenal for Kleptocracy

5JC

Really? where have you been the last 200 years?

When we weren’t actually doing it ourselves by invading and taking native territory, Mexico or Spanish territory we were actively supporting regimes in just about every other country in the world.

Let’s play a game. You name a country with more than a million inhabitants and I’ll tell you when the last time we supported a corrupt regime there (or against it) was.

KoB

Yep! “…adventurous abroad…and despotic at home.” Nailed it Bobby Lee.

The MIC grins.

5JC

Phst, before Bobby Lee we had already been in Chile, Mexico and Japan. Also helped establish a reliable slave trading partner of Liberia. That is just on the public side.

On the Private side pro slavery filibusters (betcha didn’t know the other meaning) invaded half a dozen countries and tried to set up regimes there. Manifest Destiny was a helluva thing.