Michael Kelly wrote:

:Fred J. McCall wrote:
: "The WCMD-ER system adds a wing kit to the GPS version of the WCMD
: tail kit to obtain a range of 30-40 miles."
: -- http://www.f-16.net/f-16_news_article665.html
:
: "The JSOW is a family of affordable, highly lethal weapons
: revolutionizing strike warfare. This new generation glide weapon
: ensures warfighter survivability by enabling precision air strike
: launches from well beyond most enemy air defenses, at kinematic
: standoff ranges up to 70 nm (130 km)."
: http://www.raytheon.com/products/ste...s01_055754.pdf
:
: Last I checked 70 is bigger than 40.
:
:The 70 nm range smells to me like a publicity shot like the 110 nm
:Phoenix shot and is probably not very operationally representative.

You mean like the "30-40 miles" called out for WCMD-ER? Both are "as
high up as I can get it and as fast as I can let go of it" numbers.

As for the Phoenix, it really does go that far.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/.../wep-phoe.html

:For
:an operationally representative shot the numbers are much closer.

No, for an operationally representative shot the numbers are
infinitely far apart. Hundreds of JSOW have been fired in combat.
Zero WCMD-ER have been fired in combat and zero are in the hands of
operational folks.

:For obvious reasons I won't discuss ranges.
:
: I thought it got zeroed everywhere (although USAF was trying to get
: some money put back for it). Did they get it refunded? Last I heard
: they'd given up asking for procurement funds for '06 and were trying
: to eke out $20-ish million to finish development.
:
: Until it IOCs it's still a paper weapon.
:
:As I said they're being dropped now at Eglin. We were surprised to hear
:they were still being developed, but it isn't unusual to see funding cut
:and then restored.

And as I said, until it IOCs it's still a paper weapon.

: It's only more cost effective if you actually get to procure them.
: Any time you start slapping things on bombs, that *is* effectively a
: brand new weapon. Radical changes in aerodynamic behaviour. That's
: why there are development programs for this stuff.
:
:WCMD-ER is a weapon that costs tens of thousands of dollars

Many tens of thousands of dollars.

:verses JSOW which costs hundreds of thousands.

For much more range (although maybe not on the BUFF - JSOW on a BUFF
is a pain in the ass, what with different separation limits for
virtually every station).

:Any time you cut metal for an
:entirely new shape it will cost more money. As to the flight testing
:stuff, I agree, any time you change something that you will be dropping
:you do need to extensively test it. That cost though is less though for
:a modification of an existing weapon than for a completely new one.

A wing is hardly just 'a modification'. WCMD-ER is effectively almost
a new weapon system.

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw