Air Force’s Cheap And Fast To Produce Long-Range Missile Is Being Built For Ukraine

The U.S. Air Force has disclosed that Ukraine is the intended recipient of a new relatively low-cost precision-guided air-launched stand-off munition it is looking to start development of called the Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM).

ERAM, which could have a range of up to 250 miles, would give the Ukrainian Air Force new capacity to strike targets beyond the reach of many of the weapons currently in its arsenal, including Western-supplied precision-guided bombs. It also offers an ideal opportunity to do a more immediate real-world evaluation of evolving concepts for rapidly developing and scaling up of production of relatively complex weapon systems. Finding ways to quickly expand stand-off strike capacity and significantly enlarge relevant stockpiles is of great interest to the U.S. military, especially when it comes to planning around a potential future high-end conflict with China.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s (AFLCMC) Armament Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida quietly issued a request for proposals (RFP) regarding ERAM yesterday, which Aviation Week was among the first to spot. The RFP is a part of a larger rapid development contracting vehicle called the AFLCMC Armament Directorate Rapid Response (ADRR) Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO).

The new RFP “seeks to procure the initial phases of a new aircraft launched weapon labeled ERAM,” which “is pivotal for accelerating Ukraine’s capability to meet warfighter needs efficiently and effectively and provides an affordable mass weapon to be produced at scale,” according to the Air Force. “The Government is seeking to prototype and adapt commercial autonomous modular open architecture vehicle that can deliver affordable long-range effects. The resultant prototype will provide a platform that is mass producible.”

In January, the Air Force issued its first public contracting notice regarding ERAM, a request for information (RFI), but made no mention at that time about any connection to Ukraine. The new RFP says it is explicitly asking for full proposals from each of the 16 companies – none of which are named – that responded to the earlier RFI.

The RFP refers to a set of requirements for ERAM that do not appear to be publicly released. The previous RFI did outline some key parameters, as The War Zone reported earlier this year:

“AFLCMC/EBDK’s [the AFLCMC Armament Directorate’s] contracting notice calls for a 500-pound-class munition with a range of at least 250 miles and a top speed of no less than Mach 0.6. The size of the munition’s warhead isn’t specified, but it needs to be a blast/fragmentation type with at least some degree of penetrating capability and unspecified variable fuze settings.”

“The ERAM’s internal navigation system has to be ‘capable of operating in a GPS degraded environment.’ The weapon also needs to have a ‘terminal Accuracy’ of ‘CEP 50 w/in 10m’ (meaning the weapon hits within 10 meters, or around 33 feet, of the specified impact point at least 50 percent of the time) in ‘both in non-EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) and high EMI environments (includes GPS degraded).’”

The RFI also called for a design that a manufacturer could build 1,000 within two years, or an average of nearly 42 per month.

The U.S. military has had its own interest in precision-guided munitions that can still function effectively in the face of heavy electronic warfare jamming, but those particular requirements now make even more sense knowing that ERAM is intended for Ukraine. Russian forces have reportedly been using electronic warfare systems to good effect against GPS-assisted guidance packages used on a variety of air and ground-launched munitions that Ukraine has received from the United States and other Western partners. In May, the Pentagon announced that the Air Force had signed a separate contract to buy new seekers for Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range (JDAM-ER) precision glide bombs for Ukraine to give them a home-on-jam capability to help address this threat, as you can read more about here.

The ERAM requirements from the RFI are also broadly in line with those of a powered derivative of the JDAM, or PJDAM, which Boeing has been pitching, as well as those of a powered version of Raytheon’s Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW) glide bomb.

On an operational level, new precision-guided air-launched stand-off munitions with ranges of up to 250 miles would be a great boon for the Ukrainian Air Force, in general. For comparison, Ukraine has received JDAM-ERs and Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) from the United States, as well as French-made Hammer guided bombs, all of which can hit targets out to distances of around 40 to 45 miles, depending on the release envelope and other factors. Ukraine’s air arm has also gotten Storm Shadow cruise missiles from the United Kingdom and functionally identical SCALP-EGs from France that have maximum ranges of around 300 miles.

ERAM would allow Ukraine’s pilots valuable added capability to engage targets deeper behind the front lines, while also reducing their exposure to the very real threat of Russian air defenses, which Ukraine has also been actively targeting. Depending on the munition’s propulsion system and flight profile, Ukrainian Air Force aircraft might still be able to hit enemy forces substantial distances away even when releasing the weapons at lower altitudes to help keep themselves further shielded from potential threats.

It’s interesting to note here that Lt. Gen. Serhii Naev, the commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said back in February that unspecified air-to-ground missiles with ranges of between 186 to 310 miles were expected to come along new Western-supplied F-16 Viper fighters. Whether Naev was referring to ERAM is unknown, and there are other possibilities as The War Zone explored at the time, but his comments did come just days after the Air Force put out its initial RFI for the new air-launched munition. U.S. and other Western officials announced yesterday that the transfer of the first tranche of F-16s to Ukraine had begun.

ERAM could well be intregrated onto other aircraft in Ukrainian service. In April, the U.S. military revealed details about how it had been getting various Western precision-guided munitions to work with Ukraine’s Soviet-era MiGs and Sukhois in part with the help of iPads or similar tablets mounted in their cockpits, as you can read more about here. You can see an example of such a system in the cockpit of a Ukrainian Su-27 Flanker fighter in the video below.

The ability to ramp up the production of ERAMs could be just as important for Ukraine as the weapon’s specific capabilities. The Ukrainian Air Force has a clear need now for more munitions and steady supply chains are of critical importance to sustained operations. The War Zone has highlighted the importance of these logistical factors in the past with regard to other Western military aid to Ukraine, especially the relatively ready availability of AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) for its National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS).

In addition, while the Air Force says ERAM is ostensibly for Ukraine, it is not hard to see how the service or other branches of the U.S. military might also be interested in this weapon. The original ERAM RFI was released around the same time as the Navy put out one for a similar-sounding proposed munition dubbed the Multi-Mission Affordable Capacity Effector (MACE).

Last month, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), in cooperation with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Armament Directorate (AFLCMC/EB), also announced it had picked four companies to build prototypes of a relatively low-cost and readily producible Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV). The Air Force has said it is specifically interested in the ETV effort as a stepping stone to future cruise missile concepts. This follows years of other U.S. military projects in similar veins. These efforts also mirror initiatives aimed at reducing costs and speeding up large-scale production of other systems, especially uncrewed platforms.

The U.S. military expects to expend copious amounts of stand-off munitions just in the opening phases of any future high-end conflict, especially one against China across, the broad expanses of the Pacific. Lower-cost, easier-to-produce designs will be critical for stocking up on relevant weapons now and refilling inventories during an extended conflict in more economical ways. Ongoing operations in response to an anti-shipping campaign that Houthi militants in Yemen are waging in and around the Red Sea, as well as the U.S. military’s contribution to the defense of Israel against incoming missiles and drones from Iran in April, have shined new light on issues relating to munition expenditure rates and replenishing stockpiles.

With all this in mind, ERAM presents an opportunity to go through the entire cycle of rapid prototyping and fielding of a weapon system that would then go straight into operational use in a real conflict. Whatever the results might be, the lessons learned would be extremely valuable to all parties involved. The conflict in Ukraine is already being used, somewhat controversially, as a real-world proving ground of sorts for weapons and other materiel. This is something that Ukrainians themselves have openly touted on occasion.

The new revelation that the U.S. Air Force is developing ERAM for its Ukrainian counterparts has major implications when it comes to providing that country with a badly needed boost to its ability to conduct precision air strikes and do so at stand-off ranges. The weapon could also have broader ramifications, especially when it comes to how it is developed and produced, that extend well beyond the conflict in Ukraine.

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