TAURUS seeks US market

[Slater]

According to an article in Aviation Week, TAURUS Systems GmbH has partnered with US company Textron Defense Systems to market its KEPD-350 missile to the Pentagon.

 

In the wake of JASSM's recent technical and financial woes, Taurus is seeking to fill a niche in the US market for the hard and deeply buried target set. Evidently, Taurus can penetrate twice as much concrete as JASSM (which was news to me - specialized warhead, I would imagine). Taurus says that the KEPD-350 can fly 500 nautical miles using a high level of flight profile, while a high-low or combination profile would yield a range of about 280 nm. Rumor is (again, according to AW&ST) that KEPD-350 has piqued the interest of a few personnel in DoD.

 

Interesting weapon, although it's chances are probably slim at best unless JASSM has a complete meltdown:

 

http://www.taurus-systems.de/html/missilesystem.html

[Guest pfcem]

Yes it is a "special warhead" called BROACH (Bomb Royal Ordnance Augmented CHarge). Essentailly it is a dual-charge warhead with a smaller shaped-charge for penetrate & a larger blast/fragmentation charge.

 

Already has US designation WDU-44/B (Shaped-Charge Warhead; first component of "BROACH" warhead) & WDU-45/B (Blast/Fragmentation Warhead; second component of "BROACH" warhead) and being used in the AGM-86D CALCM & AGM-154C JSOW. No reason why BROACH could not be adapted for JASSM.

[Jim Martin]

Yes except that JASSM is still on the drawing board and sucking up development funds which could be spent instead on say, refurbishing equipment that's worn out from 5 years of warfighting, while Taurus is operational NOW.

[swerve]

... Evidently, Taurus can penetrate twice as much concrete as JASSM (which was news to me - specialized warhead, I would imagine). ...

 

The basic missile (the currently operational one) has a warhead comparable to the BROACH, i.e. a big specialised penetrator warhead. I'm not sure what stage of development the other versions are, though IIRC the dispenser system & warheads of the multiple warhead version were developed for other weapons, & are mature & thoroughly tested & debugged.

[Guest pfcem]

Yes except that JASSM is still on the drawing board and sucking up development funds which could be spent instead on say, refurbishing equipment that's worn out from 5 years of warfighting, while Taurus is operational NOW.

BS. JASSM has been "operational" since 2003.

 

While I do not have the exact numbers I would not be supprised to find that more JASSM have been produced to date than Taurus.

[Jim Martin]

BS. JASSM has been "operational" since 2003.

 

 

That's funny, Slater wrote not too long ago on this very site:

 

Just read an article in the latest Aviation Week regarding the AGM-158 JASSM. Evidently discussions are shifting from whether to axe the whole program on cost/technical grounds to figuring out how to pay for fixes. The program has experienced a 25% cost overrun and ran into technical problems, of which the primary issue is the GPS receiver and the "Selected Availability Anti-Spoofing Module".

 

Reliability has dipped to 58% and at that rate, three or more weapons are needed to insure a kill. The cause of the GPS problems has apparently been determinedbut paying for a fix and retrofitting the 600 weapons in the field will cost approximately $100 million. And the USAF eventually wants around 4900 of these missiles.

 

That's not very "operational" in my book. Sounds like the Euros have a couple of proven winners--Taurus and Storm Shadow--and we're wasting our money trying to re-invent the wheel.

 

This is the same stupidity that forced US ground troops to keep using the M60, rather than purchasing a far superior European solution, for 4 decades.

[Bearded-Dragon]

Interesting weapon. It claims that it is "concept validated" with C-17s. How do they intend to carry/launch them? On pallets out the back?

 

They also claim that it is, "Worldwide only system achieving high precision over large distances without GPS" - what guidance mechanism are they using to achieve "high precision" (I note it isn't defined - 1 metres, 5 metres, 100 metres?) over a range of 500 km.

 

It does though, sound like the answer to the US's JASSM woes. I suspect its what we need downunder. Perhaps launched from our C-130s or F/A-18s or future F-35s?

[Guest pfcem]

That's funny, Slater wrote not too long ago on this very site:

That's not very "operational" in my book.

Nevertheless IOC was declared in 2003 (on B-52 & B-2).

 

We don't know what the success rate of Tarsus is...

 

 

 

Sounds like the Euros have a couple of proven winners--Taurus and Storm Shadow--and we're wasting our money trying to re-invent the wheel.

 

This is the same stupidity that forced US ground troops to keep using the M60, rather than purchasing a far superior European solution, for 4 decades.

More BS.

 

The JASSM & Taurus development contracts were both signed in 1998.

 

And each Taurus costs about twice as much a JASSM. The whole reason for JASSM was lower cost, Taurus was NEVER going to meet US needs (otherwise we would have stuck with the TSSAM).

[BansheeOne]

They also claim that it is, "Worldwide only system achieving high precision over large distances without GPS" - what guidance mechanism are they using to achieve "high precision" (I note it isn't defined - 1 metres, 5 metres, 100 metres?) over a range of 500 km.

 

Taurus has a triple INS/GPS, terrain reference and final IIR seeker array. I guess it's the latter that makes for the "high precision" on target. I'm puzzled over the 500 km range claim though, much less the 500 nm from Slater's post. I've always seen it quoted at 350 km, that's why it's called the KEPD-350. I'll buy that it would increase out of a strictly NOE profile, but by almost three times (and do you really want to fly your missile at altitude)?

 

The warhead is called Mephisto (Multi-Effect Penetrator High Sophisticated and Target Optimized), shaped breaching charge and a penetrator that can be set to detonate after going through a variable number of walls, both with secondary frag capability.

[Slater]

If the requirement is for a "stealthy" weapon then I would imagine that JASSM would have an advantage over KEPD-350 (without knowing the particulars about KEPD-350's LO characteristics).

 

The 500 nautical mile figure is directly from the AW&ST article, and was apparently a figure quoted by Tarus Systems. If accurate, KEPD-350 would match the range of extended-range JASSM.

[swerve]

Interesting weapon. It claims that it is "concept validated" with C-17s. How do they intend to carry/launch them? On pallets out the back?...

 

Yes. EADS has designed a fancy pallet for launching cruise missiles (specifically, Taurus & Storm Shadow) from the back of transport aircraft. Not been fully developed or tested, AFAIK. Supposed to be suitable for A400M & C17, at least.

 

... I'm puzzled over the 500 km range claim though, much less the 500 nm from Slater's post. I've always seen it quoted at 350 km, that's why it's called the KEPD-350. I'll buy that it would increase out of a strictly NOE profile, but by almost three times (and do you really want to fly your missile at altitude)?...

 

500 km is the distance it would normally fly to hit a target 350km in a straight line from the launch point. The missile usually flies NOE & indirect, to evade defences &, if detected, not alert them the intended target. It's demonstrated >500 km NOE flight distance. 500 nm is less than twice that. The lighter warhead version would be able to fly quite a lot further.

 

The 500 nautical mile figure is directly from the AW&ST article, and was apparently a figure quoted by Tarus Systems. If accurate, KEPD-350 would match the range of extended-range JASSM.

 

Depends on how the JASSM-ER range is measured, doesn't it? Straight line at altitude, evasive at low level, or something in between?

Edited July 28, 2007 by swerve

[Slater]

The Summer 2006 edition of USAF Weapons Review has an interesting article on JASSM ("Joint Air-To-Surface Standoff Missile Flight Path Deconfliction"). Among other things:

 

"JASSM is not truly a TOT (Time-On-Target) weapon, but rather a Time -Of-Flight (TOF) weapon. The missile will slow down or speed up tp make its preplanned TOF by +/- 5 seconds. If the launch aircraft is late by 2 minutes, the missile will be late by 2 minutes +/- 5 seconds. Early or late time at release is irrelevant to flight path or altitude flown".

 

Interestingly, the missile will actually create its own waypoints when launched in the Target Of Opportunity mode and under certain conditions.

[BansheeOne]

500 km is the distance it would normally fly to hit a target 350km in a straight line from the launch point. The missile usually flies NOE & indirect, to evade defences &, if detected, not alert them the intended target. It's demonstrated >500 km NOE flight distance. 500 nm is less than twice that. The lighter warhead version would be able to fly quite a lot further.

 

Ah, okay.

[Praet]

If the requirement is for a "stealthy" weapon then I would imagine that JASSM would have an advantage over KEPD-350 (without knowing the particulars about KEPD-350's LO characteristics).

What puzzles me is that I keep reading similar comments again and again. Why is it that JASSM is always believed to be "more stealthy" than ROW contenders?

[Slater]

I think it's just a generalization based on the publicly available information. As far as I know (and again, this is just conjecture on my part, having no knowlege of actual mission profiles) missiles such as Storm Shadow and KEPD-350 use a low altitude route to approach their targets. They can also approach from various directions. JASSM is released, cruises to, and attacks it's target from what (to me) is a surprisingly high altitude.

 

The article I referred to in the above post lists specific cruise altitudes and attack profiles and is in a "restricted availability" publication, so in the interest of OPSEC I won't detail those here. Any person having access to a USAF Base Library can read about it, though. Not trying to go overboard on the security issue, but I'm just erring on the side of caution, I suppose.