The U.S. State Department approved the sale of thousands of guided bombs to a foreign customer for $2.68 billion. And the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) has already notified Congress of the need to certify the contract.
Specifically, this concerns a new contract for Canada. Under it, Canadians can receive an entire arsenal of various guided bombs, namely:
Read more: Italy May Resume M109L Howitzers Deliveries to Ukraine After Two Years Break, but Their Condition Is in Question
- 3,108 - GBU-39 SDB-I guided bombs
- 2,004 - GBU-53 SDB-II StormBreaker guided bombs
- 220 - 2,000-pound BLU-117 (Mk-84) bombs
- 3,414 - 500-pound BLU-111 (Mk-82) bombs
- 146 - certain penetrating warheads I-2000 (probably anti-bunker BLU-109)
In addition, the list also includes training and test samples:
- 750 - training GBU-39 SDB-I
- 100 - test GBU-39 SDB-I Guided Test Vehicles (GTV)
- 100 - test GBU-53 SDB-II StormBreaker GTV
- 100 - inert training Mk-82
As well as special guidance kits (tail sections) for equipping ordinary bombs and converting them from conventional to guided:
- - 5,352 - KMU-572 guidance kits for 500-pound GBU-38
- - 396 - KMU-556 guidance kits for 2,000-pound GBU-31
- - 140 - KMU-557 guidance kits for special anti-bunker 2,000-pound GBU-31(V)3B
And thats not all, because the contract also includes fuzes, laser guidance heads for GBU-54, training munitions, tools, documentation, special equipment, software, spare parts, logistics and engineering services, etc.
Of course, this is not yet a firm contract, but only permission to purchase, so Canada may order only some portion of this. But even so, the scale is impressive, and it could well enter the list of largest contracts specifically for guided bombs.
Perhaps among all ordered bombs, the most interesting is the GBU-53 SDB-II StormBreaker. For Canada, this is the first order for them, and among all they are the most technologically advanced and smartest, but accordingly cost crazy money, as can be learned from the contract for Belgium.
For guidance, it has 5 systems at once: active radar seeker, thermal imaging seeker, semi-active laser, inertial system, and GPS.
For understanding, the previous version GBU-39 SDB-I had only inertial system and GPS, and not the most powerful one, which is why russian electronic warfare systems jammed it well.
Read more: UK Defense Intelligence: russia Seeks to Freeze Ukraine Into Crisis
