US Navy produces smart, cheap 6kg fire+forget missile
14th May 2011
US military boffins have added cheap “fire and forget” autonomous seeker heads to basic, lightweight dumb rockets of a type which can be fired in large numbers. By seriously reducing the size and cost of smart weapons, this development is yet another big step towards changing the way wars are fought.
A single helicopter armed with LCITS 70mms would be able, as the ONR suggests, to cause a frightful slaughter among a “swarm” of attacking speedboats. Normally the chopper crew would be slowed up or even stymied by the need to hold laser dots on targets moving at high speed and probably weaving or jinking unpredictably. There is a “fire and forget” version of Hellfire but it can only be shot from more sophisticated Apache copters mounting the Longbow radar: and an Apache can only carry 16 Hellfires as opposed to 76 LCITS 70mms.