French AASM Demonstrates Outstanding Versatility in Libyan Campaign
The Libyan campaign has emphasized unique advantages of the French AASM-250 autonomous guided weapons. Previously criticized in the media as an excessively expensive weapon, AASM proved its value in offering operational flexibility, in providing small fighting formations the effects achied by much larger strike forces. The weapon was developed to meet a wide range of counter-air and offensive air missions, including Counter Air Defense/(Suppression of Enemy Air Defense – SEAD), Air Interdiction and Deep Strikes, to Close Air Support (CAS) including precision attacks in urban environments, as well as anti-ship missions.
Relying on the AASM extended stand-off range, Rafales were tasked to suppress and destroySA-3 air defense sites during the initial phases of the conflict. During these strikes, utilizing the Rafales’ on-board sensor fusion capability, integrating data obtained from on-board sensors and external sources, delivered over Link-16, the fighters could generate strike coordinates based on real-time data, and feed it to the weapon in flight. The French fighters succeeded to hit the active sites with AASM, launching the weapons from long distance, outside the SA-3 launch envelope. Since each individual weapon is programmed with specific target coordinates, multiple weapons can be employed from the same aircraft, to attack different targets. Each weapon can be reprogrammed in flight, enabling it to engage several targets simultaneously (up to six in the case of the Rafale.)
A significant advantage of the AASM is the ability to retarget the weapon from the cockpit, just before launch. A Rafale carrying six weapons, each programmed with six different targets prior to takeoff. In addition to hitting each of the targets, the same fighter can re-attack targets already engaged but not destroyed, ensuring mission success, avoiding the high risk and costs involved with repeat missions, following battle damage assessment. Overall, Sagem claims a mission success rate of over 90%, compared to 70%, achieved by unpowered (gliding) laser guided or geo-targeted weapons, which are also restricting mission planning in flight envelope, flight trajectory, impact angle and penetration.
When employed against air defense assets, the combination of the weapon’s stand-off range and re-attack capability means an air defense site would be taken out of operation for longer periods, delivering higher success rate in SEAD operations and precision attacks of high value targets. Another important capability, particularly in today’s hybrid warfare, is the weapon’s flexibility in striking ‘time critical targets’. During the recent attacks in Libya, a Rafale pilot clearly demonstrated such method, when spotting a Libyan Soko G2 Galeb aircraft flying near Misrata. As the Libyan plane landed at the base, the Rafale pilot acquired its coordinates as a ‘target of opportunity’, fed the data to the weapon and launched the GPS/INS guided AASM against the target. As the weapon dropped, it homed in on the exact spot and destroyed the Libyan aircraft on the tarmac.
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