(ENDP) review, which culminates in an ENDP Committee review. Once the potential new customer is approved by the committee, information will “begin to flow for them to make a more informed decision to procure AARGM,” an industry source explained. Via the FMS, and with the support of the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), Germany will be the latest customer; the German government decided in March to procure 15 examples of a variant of the Eurofighter, which can be deployed for SEAD operations. Although industry did not provide additional detail about other potential customers, MilTech understands that the AARGM is also being offered to Poland as the armament for its F-16 C/D Blk52+ fighter aircraft. An earlier announcement by the Ministry of National Defence’s Armament Agency (formerly Armament Inspectorate), possibly in conjunction with a market analysis, emphasised the importance of air-to-ground weapon modernisation in Poland, citing Polish Air Force officials who estimated an emerging demand for SEAD capacities at the beginning of this decade. In the past, Su-22M4 aircraft were equipped with Soviet Kh-25MP missiles to prosecute this mission. With the AARGM-ER (Extended Range) variant, Northrop Grumman is taking the next steps. The manufacturer stated that there are options for integration of the AARGM-ER on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The ER variant is planned to fit in the internal bay for both the F-35A and F-35C, according to information contained in various USN budget documents. The ER variant might double the operational range of the current AARGM to, say 150 kilometres. An initial operational capability (IOC) is anticipated by around 2023. With AARGM, operators will have a significantly improved ability for DEAD (as opposed to simple SEAD) against evolving threats. Conclusion ‘Lessons learned’ from the current war in Ukraine will undoubtedly manifest the thesis that “rapidly improving IADS need to be countered by completely new abilities.” As the electromagnetic spectrum is becoming the “warfighting domain of the future,” where peer and near-peer adversaries are expected to pose serious risks for friendly military forces, modernisation of existing assets is becoming essential as a component of developing the full spectrum of air power in the 2020s. Dr Stefan Nitschke is Editor-in-Chief of Naval Forces and Wehrtechnik. From the Bridge MT 2/2022 · 53 targets. The US Navy (USN) has maintained a requirement to reduce or neutralise surface-to-air radar systems for over 50 years; the response has been a transition from the AGM-78 Standard missile to the AGM-45 Shrike, the AGM-88 HARM and now the AGM-88E AARGM. “All were developed to meet and negate the threats during their designed period of performance,” an industry source stated to MilTech. “As threats evolve, so do the needs for the counter systems.” USN officials believe the new technology can help fighter pilots maximise effectiveness against highly sophisticated ground-based IADS. They suggest that, with the wide variety of defensive tactics (radar shut-down tactics; GPS jamming; active and passive decoys; frequency hopping), AARGM will obtain better results than HARM. Key AARGM upgrade components to the legacy AGM-88B include the advanced ARH sensor, the active millimetre wave (mmW) terminal guidance system and the Digital Terrain Data (DTED)-aided SAASM GPS/ INS – with the SAASM prefix denoting Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module. According to a source at Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (NGIS), the ARH sensor is the “initial key to the system” to detect and then pass Angle-of-Arrival (AOR) information to the AARGM’s guidance and control processing system. The AOR is combined with DTED information to provide a GPS coordinate – a coordinate that then becomes the sensor focus when the hostile radar shuts down. Until then, the combined sensor system refines the threat radar location as long as it continues to transmit. “Once the threat radar shuts down, the GPS threat location becomes the primary guidance to place the endgame terminal mmW seeker in position to scan a volume to find the radar, missile launchers or support equipment,” NGIS explained. When used in a complex DEAD [Destruction of Enemy Air Defences] scenario, the AARGM requires an RF signal to provide a targeting capability, however. The missile can be used as a point-to-point GPS type of weapon against time-sensitive targets; target coordinates will be required for this capability. Next Steps The AARGM is sold only through the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) process, implying that potential new customers must provide the US government a formal request for AARGM that most often takes the form of a Letter of Request for a classified capability briefing and/or a request for pricing and availability information. This initial request for information initiates the US government’s Exception to National Disclosure Policy The AARGM-ER is planned to be carried in the internal bay of the F-35A and C models.
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