Video:
U.S. Navy Launched JSOW C-1 During Exercise Valiant Shield
Sailors
from Carrier Air Wing Five (CVW-5) fired the newest Joint Standoff Weapon,
JSOW C-1, Sept. 13 during Valiant Shield exercise conducted in the Western
Pacific. Valiant Shield is the first time the fleet conducted an operational
end-to-end employment of a network enabled weapon, using both live rounds
and captive air training missiles during the exercise.
A Joint
Standoff Weapon (JSOW) C-1 in flight off the coast of California in
2011. A JSOW C-1, similar to the one pictured, completed it last free-flight
test as part of integrated test and evaluation in January 2015. (U.S.
Navy photo)
"Participating
in Valiant Shield is a great opportunity for our team to obtain real-world
practice exercising the system-of-systems involved in employing JSOW
C-1," said Lt. Alex Sandroni, JSOW project lead with Air Test and
Evaluation Squadron (VX) 31. “This type of training will help
us deliver effective material and training solutions to support all
network enabled weapons in the future.”
Sandroni, one of only a handful of air crew who has flown with JSOW
C-1, provided aircrew training to CVW-5 prior to the exercise. During
the event, the crew successfully fired a total of seven weapons from
F/A-18 E/F strike aircraft.
Initially, the fleet operators fired a number of weapons using basic
tactics developed for employment of network enabled weapons against
a moving ship target. After that initial salvo, the crew incorporated
new tactics including use of a third party targeting source to fully
exercise the capabilities of this new weapon.
NAVAIR Video
“JSOW
brings a host of capabilities together in one family of weapons,”
said Kristin Brush, lead mission planning and aviation electronics technician
instructor for the JSOW training team. “Not only is JSOW C an
extremely capable weapon against an array of land targets with its two-stage
warhead, but now the C1 variant can be employed as an anti-surface warfare
weapon against moving maritime targets.”
The weapon is integrated with a Link 16 network radio, enabling it to
engage moving targets at sea. The radio allows the launch aircraft or
another designated controller to provide real-time target updates to
the weapon in flight or reassign the weapon to another target. It also
uses GPS/INS and an infrared seeker for terminal guidance.
JSOW C-1 achieved initial operating capability in June 2016 and will
deploy with all air wings in the future.
