The upgrade is meant to counter the proliferation of Russian EW systems that caused the effectiveness of Ukrainian Excalibur GPS-guided artillery rounds to decrease from 70% to just 6%.
By
Theresa Hitchens on January 08, 2021 at 4:07 PM
Four Collaborative Small Diameter Bombs (CSDBs) hang from the wing of an F-16 fighter from the Air Force Test Center’s 96th Test Wing at Eglin AFB. Two bombs were dropped during the first flight demonstration of the Air Force Golden Horde Vanguard.
WASHINGTON: The Air Force Research Laboratory’s prototype ‘swarming’ munitions failed to hit their targets in their first flight demo, but experts see the potential for networked, autonomous munitions to eventually equip America’s entire fighter fleet.
The new munitions being designed under AFRL’s Golden Horde project use data links to communicate, chose targets (based on pre-programmed algorithms) and then coordinate strikes against an array of targets, independently from the human pilot.