In late 2021, the Navy conducted the first weapon drop of a Raytheon StormBreaker smart weapon from a Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II. (Photo courtesy of Raytheon Missiles & Defense.)
In late November, Raytheon Missiles & Defense and the US Navy conducted the first weapon drop of a StormBreaker smart weapon from a Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II. During the test, an F-35B naval aviator used the network-enabled weapon as a guided munition, employing the same mission scenario as one that would be used in combat—from mission planning to release.
The F-35B will continue developmental and operational testing to prove out safety and capability. It will be the third US fighter to get the StormBreaker precision-guided glide bomb. The US Navy is expected to declare initial operating capability for it on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet after operational testing concludes. The US Air Force fielded the weapon on the F-15E Strike Eagle in late 2020, after StormBreaker successfully performed a series of various, stressing live drops and evaluations.
In this Q&A with Steve Milano, Director of Air to Surface Requirements and Capability at Raytheon Missiles & Defense, we discuss the military requirements that led to development of the GBU-53/B StormBreaker bomb, its capabilities, and its options as a growth weapon.
Steve Milano, Director of Air to Surface Requirements and Capability at Raytheon Missiles & Defense.
Breaking Defense: Explain the importance of the air-to-surface mission in today’s threat environment? What is the genesis for StormBreaker?
Milano: There’s hadn’t been a lot of requirement changes for what was previously called the Small Diameter Bomb. It wasn’t until the US Air Force started fighting in Kosovo in the late nineties where the future of these weapons requirements actually came from.
As a result of that conflict, we looked at low-collateral-damage engagement because we were in a densely populated area. We looked at having to fight through weather. We looked at having to do multiple target passes per run. We looked at reducing airlift support because it becomes very expensive to support these missions. Having more aircraft in the air also puts more warfighters at risk.
Being able to engage against countermeasures and to engage mobile and maneuvering targets were requirements that came out of that conflit. They informed the weapons that we saw being put into effect during the Global War on Terrorism in the early 2000s and the teens. all do
They also informed the requirements that became what the modern StormBreaker is today: a weapon that can locate and destroy maneuvering targets on land and sea, and do that in adverse weather with minimized collateral damage, and do those missions with reduced support.
Breaking Defense: What technologies set StormBreaker apart?
Milano: The StormBreaker capability gives you the ability to stand off at greater than 45 nautical miles. It also gives you the ability to autonomously use the tri-mode seeker in the front end to classify and engage targets.
At the back end, looking at the actual capability and lethality of the platform, is the multi-effect warhead that is designed to take on tanks, maneuvering targets, and fixed structures. It’s got a wide portfolio of targets that it can go after. Previous classes of weapon were only intended for soft non-moving or slowly-moving targets in the open.
Breaking Defense: Looking at it from the point of view of the Great Power competition, how might StormBreaker be employed as part of an improved OODA loop or kill chain with networking capabilities for Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2)?
Milano: The reason we call StormBreaker a smart weapon is because of its brain and its ability to communicate. StormBreaker is a net-enabled weapon that uses a dual-band two-way data link to communicate with the network. It will communicate with its controlling platform or an off-board platform, as well as ground controllers, as necessary.
In a JADC2 environment, StormBreaker acts as your edge-computing capability and your eyes at the edge of the battlefield. You’re engaging targets, passing back information, and playing a role in the broader picture. It’s not a day-one weapon that you use at the beginning of the war, but it’s an enabler as a conflict unfolds.
Raytheon’s StormBreaker glide bomb has an advanced tri-mode seeker being integrated on the F-35B and Air Force fighters. (Photo courtesy of Raytheon Missiles & Defense.)
Breaking Defense: What makes it smart? I understand that it’s precision guided and connected to a network, but in what ways is it smart?
Milano: All of the attributes that make StormBreaker great individually all work together in a virtual, fused environment in the back end.
The seeker at the front has a millimeter wave radar, an imaging infrared seeker, and a semi-active laser. Each of those is a unique capability, and we’re the only ones that utilize a tri-mode seeker in this class of weapon. We’re also the first network-enabled weapon in the Air Force inventory.
StormBreaker takes all of the inputs and data from these systems and fuses them with the GPS (Global Positioning Systems) and enhanced INS (inertial navigation system) data in the backend, as well as the input from the dual-band data link that we mentioned previously. Fusing together that data provides a mature targeting and information solution so that it can ensure low-collateral-damage engagement on the target.
One of the things that’s unique about the way we developed and matured this weapon is that a lot of the capability enhancements that go into the weapon are software integrations. So we have very powerful hardware on one side, and it’s driven by really powerful software.
That means we can make that hardware do a wide range of different things, and we can understand in real time what those capabilities are through our digital engineering efforts.
Using integrated flight simulation, we’ve run thousands of iterations of every flight profile so that we can understand exactly what the weapon is going to do and how the adversary is going to react. We then use that information to modify the software so that we can utilize the hardware in the most effective manner. That’s an advanced requirements and capability loop that we’re continuously using to improve the weapon.
Breaking Defense: The most recent program development for StormBreaker came recently when a Navy F-35B released a StormBreaker in its first ever munition drop. Please provide a program status.
Milano: As of right now, we are awarded through five lots of production. Presently, we have 2,500 rounds or so in the inventory delivered, which encompasses the first five lots of production. The sixth, seventh, and eighth lots of production are on contract and we will build those out in the coming years.
As part of the Air Force’s Weapons System Evaluation Program, WSEP, we’ve conducted a total of 14 successful shots in 2021 on the F-15E. The concept of the WSEP program is to stress the weapon through developmental and operational tests that put StormBreaker through its paces to understand what the weapon can do intentionally. WSEP is a test program that is intended to be tactically relevant .
You mentioned the first drop off the F-35B, and that kicks off a series of test shots that will ultimately culminate in a live fire test shot in a normal attack mode. That will enable the weapon to do what it’s really good at., which is sorting and categorizing what it’s seeing on the horizon and engaging those targets.
Breaking Defense: You also bill StormBreaker as a weapon platform with growth potential. What are the services asking for in growth?
Milano: The services are asking for increased load out across all of their platforms. What that means to StormBreaker is an increased platform-integration profile. That means engaging with the PEO that’s responsible for bombers, and engaging with the UAS platform providers, to name two. Predator, for example, is an objective platform for us.
So are fourth-generation fighter platforms. We’ve done a significant amount of work with the F-16 group, including a couple of captive carriage tests.
Another area of growth is expansion in building partner capacity through Foreign Military Sales (FMS). The F-35 is the primary platform for that expansion. So as the F-35A expands across our partners so will the StormBreaker capability. That’s not to say that other competitions going on worldwide where the Super Hornet is competing won’t also have StormBreaker. F-35 is just the primary.
Earlier integration of low-cost capability insertions is something we talked about earlier, and we’re focused mainly on software development to provide new capabilities. That means minimizing hardware modifications and focusing on software upgrades that can keep the weapon relevant in the fight today and tomorrow, while also keeping the cost relatively low.
Breaking Defense: Final thoughts?
Milano: One is that StormBreaker is ready now to support US operations. It’s fielded on the F-15E and going through its paces on other platforms. There’s an inventory of just over 2,500 all up rounds available to the Air Force and Navy that are delivered, integrated, and ready for action.
Second, the StormBreaker smart weapon platform as a whole completely fulfills the requirements gap that the Navy and the Air Force have today. At the same time, there’s room for development and growth without significant investment to address the technical roadmap and fulfill requirements for threats of tomorrow.
Finally, we are now at the point in the program where we’re starting to open up and look at building partner capacity. We’ve already got Australia as an FMS partner, and we’re looking at other F-35 countries as they submit the request and come on board the program.
