Military & Aerospace Electronics

IN BRIEF

4 OCTOBER 2017 MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS www.militaryaerospace.com news

Raytheon to build
lightweight Griffin
missile for UAVs, surface
warships, and aircraft

U.S. Air Force airborne weapons experts are asking the Raytheon Co. to build a lightweight missile and glide bomb that features low collateral damage and is suitable for launch from a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), military manned aircraft, and surface warships. The Air Force announced a $104.9 million contract to the Raytheon Missile Systems segment in Tucson, Ariz., to build, test, and support the AGM-176 Griffin missile.

Griffin is a lightweight, preci-sion-guided munition that can launch from the ground, from the air as a rocket-powered missile, or drop from the air as a guided bomb. It carries a relatively small, 13-pound warhead for low-collateral damage, as well as for use in irregular warfare. The munition comes in two versions. Griffin A is an unpowered precision munition that can be dropped by aircraft from a rear cargo door or a door-mounted launcher. Griffin Block II B is a short-range missile that can be fired from UAVs as well as manned helicopters, attack aircraft, U.S. Air Force AC-130W gunships, and U.S.

Marine Corps KC-130J tankers.

New era dawns in ASW as manned
and unmanned submarines
team for bistatic sonar

BY JOHN KELLER

NEWPORT, R.I. — U.S. military researchers are asking two U.S. defense contractors to develop bistatic sonar for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) that teams manned and unmanned submarines and capitalizes on the benefits of active sonar without compromising the stealth of U.S. attack submarines.

Officials of the U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) in Newport, R.I., have announced a $4.6 million contract to the BAE Systems Electronic Systems segment in Merrimack, N.H.; and a $4.7 million contract to Applied Physical Sciences Corp. in Groton, Conn., for the Mobile Offboard Command and Control and Approach (MOCCA) program.

NUWC awarded the contracts in February on behalf of the U.S.

Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) in
Arlington, Va. MOCCA seeks to
enable manned Navy submarines to
use active sonar pings from nearby
unmanned underwater vehicles
(UUVs) to detect and track enemy
submarines at long ranges with-
out giving away their presence to
potentially hostile vessels.

The project seeks to use UUVs as pingers and manned fast attack submarines as listeners to conceal the presence of the manned attack sub. Using this technology, the manned submarine could detect and target enemy submarines based on sonar returns from the UUV active sonar pingers.

Traditional active sonar bounces sound waves off submarines, surface warships, and other objects for detection and tracking. The problem with active sonar, however, is it’s like shining a flashlight in a darkened room: It can find objects effectively, but gives away its presence and forfeits any pretense of stealth.

Passive sonar, on the other hand, simply listens for sounds from enemy submarines or surface ships. It’s not as effective or as efficient as active sonar, but it preserves stealth and can keep the submarine’s presence secret from the enemy.