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Media illustrating an ex British Army CVR(T) Spartan on its way to Ukraine. The ability to move small combat vehicles like CVR(T) using common road transport, not low loaders, makes them strategically very deployable.

Pictured;

Avro Lancaster (PA474) from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight

As described in this brief video shows helicopter and artillery rocket raids are not a new concept. This, but with GMLRS would be an interesting capability.

Image;

Personnel from ARU, Army Trials Unit trialling the Wilder High Mobility Armoured Vehicle paired with an all-terrain electric mission module (ATeMM)

Read more about the history of Paveway IV at the link

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www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2022/11/pave...

Further contracts followed, including one for a £27 million contract to develop, qualify and manufacture a Tactical Penetrator Warhead for the Paveway IV. This allows a penetrating warhead weapon to be carried internally on the F-35B

P1Eb Typhoon enhancement package included integration of Paveway IV and other improvements onto Tranche 2 aircraft. This was completed for six wing pylon carriage through the full flight envelope. This work also included requalification for more demanding flight envelopes

A £2.13 million contract was awarded in 2013 to Thales for an Insensitive Munition booster for the Paveway IV’s Aurora fuze. In 2014, the MoD confirmed the cost of a single Paveway IV was £70k, and thereafter, confirmation of the 4,000 delivery milestones

SPEAR Capability 1 described three potential improvements; low collateral damage warhead, penetrating warhead and improvements to the existing laser seeker to allow a wider engagement envelope.

A further batch of Paveway IV were ordered in 2012, worth £25 million. By 2013, the UK had dropped over one thousand Paveway IV’s and the previously planned improvement roadmap was beginning to be explored further

Operational ELLAMY (Libya) saw multiple uses of Paveway IV from RAF Tornado aircraft.

The design was called the Hard and Deeply Buried Target Next Generation Multiple Warhead System, or HARDBUT.

**Excellent naming there from MBDA and QinetiQ

MBDA and QinetiQ conducted trials of a penetrating warhead in a technology demonstrator contract funded by the UK and France in 2010. Although the airframe was representative of a Storm Shadow/SCALP it was reported the technology may be pulled through onto other programmes.

Joint Force Harrier was relieved by RAF Tornado’s in June 2009 and by then, Paveway IV integration had been completed on Tornado.

After the development and assessment phase had completed, Paveway IV entered service with the RAF in 2008, having met all KUR’s. From then, it was used operationally in Afghanistan by Joint Force Harrier.

In Service Definition was;

Delivery of 96 weapons, the modification of 12 aircraft of one aircraft type, sufficient trained air and ground crew, all necessary support and a cleared Operational Flight Programme.

The Approved Cost at Main Gate was £363 million, to include integration with Harrier GR.9. Agreed manufacture quantities at Main Gate were 2,303.

Although approval was gained for integration on Harrier, Tornado and Typhoon, funding meant only Harrier integration contracts were let. During the development, the Paveway IV Baseline was improved with laser guidance capability as evolved from Enhanced Paveway II Lot 3.

The MoD shortlisted Alenia Marconi Systems (by then, MBDA) and Raytheon in 2002. Raytheon Systems Ltd won the contract in June 2003, beating MBDA which had entered the Boeing JDAM. ISD was planned to be 2007

and Sagem, with their AASM.

Raytheon with a development of their Paveway system(s)

Leigh Aerosystems with Long Shot

Elbit Systems, a development of their Lizard system

Alenia Marconi Systems (AMS) teamed with Boeing and proposed the JDAM with Diamond Back wing kit

Much greater precision and control were needed. The MoD invited expressions of interest for the new Precision Guided Bomb requirement in 2001.

NATO air operations in the Balkan’s during the nineties s had shown how existing precision tactics were frustrated by bad weather and deliberate obscurants. An MoD report concluded that only 40% of the weapons dropped by RAF Tornado and Harrier aircraft hit their targets.

It is integrated with Typhoon and will be one of the UK’s F-35B’s main air to ground weapons (the other being SPEAR), as well as being carried by the Protector RPAS

Equipped with the latest Global Positioning Guidance technology, Paveway IV is a low-cost, all-weather, 24-hour precision bomb capable of destroying the majority of general purpose targets while significantly minimising collateral damage.

Precision Guided Bomb, a thread on Paveway IV, the RAF’s principle free-fall guided weapon. The RAF describes the 225 kg Paveway IV as; his advanced and highly accurate weapon is a state-of-the-art precision guided bomb.

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Paveway IV

back-story