Warplanes: December 31, 2000

Archives

and weight while increasing survivability.--Stephen V Cole

The US Air Force has received the first 280 of a planned buy of 40,000 Wind Corrected Munitions Disperser kits, which convert unguided cluster bombs into more accurate weapons. The system provides inertial guidance and movable tail fins, produces an accuracy (circular error probable) of less than 30m, and costs under $10,000. The first WCMD kits will be used to convert CBU-87 combined effects munitions into CBU-103s. Later kits will convert CBU-97 Sensor Fuzed Weapons into CBU-105s. The Air Force plans to convert all of the CVU-97s and as many CBU-87s as it can get kits for. The Air Force has not decided on whether to convert its CBU-89 Gator Mines using Wind-Corrected kits or discard them. A second batch of 676 kits is being built by Lockheed Martin. By 2005, Wind Corrected Munitions will be certified for use on B1, B2, F117, and F15