The war in Iran has stress-tested the air defense capabilities of the U.S. military and its allies in the Middle East, consuming thousands of expensive Patriot missiles as Iran fires waves of far cheaper Shahed attack drones and medium-range ballistic missiles.
The great cost disparity in using $4 million missiles to knock down $25,000 drones led the Pentagon to come up with a less expensive alternative — one that can be launched from the air or the ground to protect bases that Patriot batteries are unable to cover.
The military adapted a small laser-guided rocket that was designed to be fired from airplanes and helicopters at targets on the ground. Called the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, it was developed in the 2000s to take out groups of enemy combatants and unarmored trucks using a relatively small warhead.
Late Friday, the State Department announced that is was selling the system to Israel, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as part of an $8.6 billion deal that bypasses congressional approval.
Where did these rockets come from?
The weapon is based off a small unguided aerial rocket nicknamed “Mighty Mouse” that U.S. forces used in combat during the Korean War.
Just 2.75 inches in diameter and a little under four feet long, it was a simple weapon: a fuze, a warhead containing the equivalent of just a couple of pounds of TNT and a rocket motor all screwed together before being loaded onto an airplane.
Each rocket weighed about 25 pounds.
During the Vietnam War, U.S. Air Force pilots fired nearly 6.2 million of them, according to government records.
Bundles of them are carried externally in launchers called pods, and can be fired one at a time or in salvos.
The modern version of these rockets is called Hydra 70 — a nod to its diameter in metric terms: 70 millimeters.
How do they work?
With the new weapon, a 1.5-foot section of 2.75-inch diameter pipe — often called a kit — is screwed between the warhead and the rocket motor. The kit contains four movable wings that pop out after the rocket is fired, and on each wing is a small sensor that picks up laser light shone onto the target. A small computer inside the kit moves the wings to steer the weapon toward it.
With the kit installed, the new rocket measures just over six feet long and weighs 35 pounds.
How much do they cost?
About $40,000 each.
How many does the United States have?
The manufacturer, BAE Systems, says it has delivered 100,000 of the kits to the Pentagon and can produce about 20,000 a year.
How does the military use them?
The Navy began using the rockets in 2011. They made it possible to accurately strike targets with a far smaller warhead than any airdropped bomb.
The first version used decades-old fuzes that exploded on impact. But when used to shoot down drones, a newer fuze for these rockets causes its warhead to explode when it detects something nearby — ideal for use against moving targets like Shahed drones.
By 2025, the Air Force was using them to shoot down Houthi drones over the Red Sea.
They can be fired from warplanes and helicopters as well as mobile ground launchers.
Israel, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates all have aircraft that can launch the rocket.
www.nytimes.com