Smart bombs boost arms makers

Oct. 24 - At a factory in St. Charles, Mo., Boeing workers are turning dumb bombs into smart weapons. The bomb’s high-tech tailfins are called joint direct attack munitions, or JDAMs in military-speak. Satellite-directed global positioning technology enable JDAM-equipped bombs to hit targets up to 15 miles away, right on the nose.

“IT CAN FLY further than a dumb bomb (with) much better accuracy,” says Kim Michel, the JDAM program manager. “Accuracy is measured in single-digit meters rather than tens of meters of hundreds of meters.”

It’s a weapon that packs more bang for the buck — literally.

A smart-bomb system costs “in the neighborhood of $20,000 ... as opposed to tens or usually hundreds of thousands of dollars for longer-range missiles that have pretty much the same accuracy.”

Thousands of JDAMs were used with devastating effect against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Now Boeing has stepped up production and the Air Force wants thousands more.

These JDAMs are symbolic of a big transformation under way in the military and defense industry. It’s a movement toward smarter, more versatile, more cost-efficient systems.

“JDAM is a great example of transformation,” says Dan Goure at the Lexington Institute. “You’re talking about an old gravity bomb that had miss distances of half a mile. And now with the addition of a kit, you can turn that into a precision weapon.”

The lion’s share of defense spending is going to the big four contractors: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.

“The major defense contractors have done pretty well this past year, and with Iraq on the horizon and who knows what else, it’s likely to continue to be the case,” says Robert Martinage at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

RIDING THE WAVE

Smaller defense companies are riding the wave, too. DRS Technologies is a midsized maker of defense electronics, microwave communications gear and night-vision equipment. CEO Mark Newman says production schedules are being ramped up.

More than ever in the post-9/11 era, technology is king. “It’s not a matter of tanks and battleships, but in many cases much more subtle technologies, sensors, robotics, cyber-technologies,” says Goure at the Lexington Institute.

At Boeing’s JDAM plant, three shifts of workers are churning out 1,500 units per month, weapons that may well fall on Baghdad soon.