Laser-guided bombs tested successfully

[sancho]

I understand your point - Oh hell I was just in a teenage supper happy mode - and apologize for the behaviour.

Thanks for the useful post though!

No need to apologise, just wanted to point out that not everything what the media wants us to believe must be true!
It's good to have them, but we should question them too, especially is what they report is based on facts, or just their opinion.

 

[sancho]

Mate, I guess you have misunderstood several things here.

You are missing very important point if you have Laser guidance kits , you can convert your bomb size to your requirements.
And these kits are very cheap when compared to stand-off A2S weapons which are Satellite guided .

First of all standoff weapons are weapons that can be used from greater ranges to the target and often have their own propulsion, or wings to change course. Mainly these are missiles like JSOW, or Slam-ER like I mentioned in an earlier post, but they don't have to be satellite guided and can use different guidance systems.
What I was talking about was satellite guided bombs like the JDAM (GPS), or the Russian KAB bombs (GLONASS).
And this leads us to the next point, because not only laser guided bombs can use kits for different weight classes, JDAM, AASM or KAB bombs (which are GPS, IR, even TV guided) are kits too.

Paveway 4:

JDAM:

KAB 500L (laser guided):


KAB 500 S-E (sat guided):



The cost difference comes mainly throught the numbers of kits beeing produced, or how advanced the guidance kits are. The Israeli Spice bomb kits are said to be very accurate and advanced, because of the electro optical and GPS guidance system, but these are also very costly and used only by a few countries. Paveway laser guided bombs instead, are now used by nearly every western nation, which means in huge numbers.

Remember Kargil story - Stand-off weapons were not available from France bcoz of sanctions ,
but we had kits and converted vintage SPANISH 70's era Bomb into LGB which were fired from MIRAGE with ATLIS pod

This is not correct, because France didn't posed sanctions against India, the problem was, that in that time IAF had only a few fighters able to carry PGMs especially not our Russian fighters. Also the few Paveway 2 bombs, like the source said:

...had been supplied with an incorrect part. Because of the nuclear test performed by India, they were on the embargo list and were unable to get the correct parts sent as replacements. Consequently IAF technicians had to remanufacture this part in order to make the Paveway serviceable for use on the Mirage.

So the correct parts of the Paveway bombs were embargoed by the US not France.
Also:

The Mirage 2000 aircraft itself had always been regarded as an air defence fighter with a limited ground attack capability. Consequently it lacked certain resources such as bombs, hardpoint pylons, tooling, testers and ground crew experience in such matters.

And that's why other bombs had to be found in the IAF Inventory which was able to be used on Mirage 2000.

Finally for illumination issues what Indian Air force has done is arm
1 Jaguar for LGB's
Another Jaguar with Laser pod and guidance .

Mainly Mirage 2000 was used in that time:

A typical bombing mission would involve 4 Mirages from 7 Squadron loaded with dumb bombs leaving a base in Punjab together with a two seat Mirage loaded with a LGB and Laser Designating pod...
...Only 9 LGB’s were dropped during the whole war, 8 by the Mirage fleet and one by a Jaguar.

Today things are pretty different, especially the MKI is very capable to deliver heavy PGMs and I am pretty sure that we will get another good alternative through MMRCA with western PGMs, which will make IAF clearly more capable then in the past.

 

[KEETARP]

Mate, I guess you have misunderstood several things here.
The cost difference comes mainly throught the numbers of kits beeing produced, or how advanced the guidance kits are. The Israeli Spice bomb kits are said to be very accurate and advanced, because of the electro optical and GPS guidance system, but these are also very costly and used only by a few countries. Paveway laser guided bombs instead, are now used by nearly every western nation, which means in huge numbers.
This is not correct, because France didn't posed sanctions against India, the problem was, that in that time IAF had only a few fighters able to carry PGMs especially not our Russian fighters. Also the few Paveway 2 bombs,

No you misunderstood my post .
When i talked about A2S stand-off weapon , i meant
AS-30L A2S missile
ASMP A2S missile
and Storm shadow, Apache, Black saheen cruise missile which are costly but Precision armaments of Mirage.
Apache/Storm shadow's guidance is GPS and AS 30 have cluster bomb like effect rather than conventional warhead so more lethal and precise

Compare above precise costly weapons to
laser guidance kits+ Locally manufactured warhead price's.
Which is more costly.????

Now India was not allowed to have ASMP which had range in excess of 300KM , bcoz was embargoed to have such weapons since non compliance of NPT.
Only option left was to use LGB ,
here comes my point manufacture Kits for LGB along with Pods like ATLIS or DAMOCLES for guidance and make them more precise which is only feasible option now.
What future is we cant wait or become dependent on GPS which can be shut anytime . Even GLONASS is not functional and Indian agreement is pending with Russia

Mainly Mirage 2000 was used in that time:

There again confusion
What i meant was - Drawback of LGB you mentioned was , it requires Illumination of target for some time and then in a sense dangerous to delivering Jet.
Better option which IAF tested was to use one platform as Guidance and other one as delivery,
and this mechanism was tested on Jaguars and it had nothing to do with Kargil issue

Hope , i have cleared out things

 

[sancho]

No you misunderstood my post .
When i talked about A2S stand-off weapon , i meant
AS-30L A2S missile
ASMP A2S missile
and Storm shadow, Apache, Black saheen cruise missile which are costly but Precision armaments of Mirage.
Apache/Storm shadow's guidance is GPS and AS 30 have cluster bomb like effect rather than conventional warhead so more lethal and precise

Compare above precise costly weapons to
laser guidance kits+ Locally manufactured warhead price's.
Which is more costly.????

But these wasn't available for us in that time anyway, not because they are costly, but because our fighters couldn't use them! Only after the upgrade to 2005 standard, our Mirage 2000 will be able to use Scalp/Black Shaheen and of course these are cleary costlier, because they are missiles, not simple bombs and more comparable to Brahmos, but not to this new laser guided bombs.

The bomb can be used from a distance to the target of maybe 15 - 30 Km, stand off, or cruise missiles can be used from far over 100Km!

Now India was not allowed to have ASMP which had range in excess of 300KM , bcoz was embargoed to have such weapons since non compliance of NPT.
Only option left was to use LGB ,
here comes my point manufacture Kits for LGB along with Pods like ATLIS or DAMOCLES for guidance and make them more precise which is only feasible option now.
What future is we cant wait or become dependent on GPS which can be shut anytime . Even GLONASS is not functional and Indian agreement is pending with Russia

Buddy ASMP is a missile with a nuclear warhead, not even now we will get them and there are a lot of weapons between a LGB and ASMP, so more alternatives are available. We don't have to rely on GPS only, there are also several other guidance systems. The point is once, it's better to have different options instead having not enough useful bombs like in Kargil. So having a variety of guided bombs, besides laser, like GPS/GLONASS, or IR guided bombs gives us more choice.

There again confusion
What i meant was - Drawback of LGB you mentioned was , it requires Illumination of target for some time and then in a sense dangerous to delivering Jet.

The illumination is not the problem, because today you can do it Km away from the target in a safe distance. The problem is the accuracy of the laser in bad weather conditions! In cloudy weather it will be very inaccurate, or even useless, that's where satellite, IR, or EO guidance systems are the better options. All weather, more accurate and available in kits for several classes too and if you have it in numbers, also cost-effective. Emogirls post explains it quiet good!