The GLSDB system. Source: Saab Group
Much-vaunted rocket-launched glide bombs supplied to Ukraine by the United States “didn’t work” due to a combination of mud, technical problems and Russian electronic warfare, the Pentagon admitted on April 25.
U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante said that Kiev forces discarded the sophisticated weapon after it failed on several occasions.
“One company, I won’t say who they are, they came up with a really cool idea of taking an air-to-ground weapon and doing a ground-launched version of it, and it would be a long-range fire weapon,” LaPlante was quoted as saying by the War Zone. “It didn’t work for multiple reasons, including [the] EMI [electromagnetic interference] environment, including just really … doing it on [the] ground, the TTPs [tactics, techniques, and procedures], the DOTML [the doctrine, organization, training, and materiel] — it just didn’t work.”
While the official did not explicitly name the weapon system in question, the description he provided suggests he was talking about the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB).
The GLSDB, which was developed by American Boeing and Swedish Saab Group, combines the 129-kilogram GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB), which is guided by a GPS-aided inertial navigation system, with the M26 227 mm rocket motor. It has a range of up to 150 kilometers.
The SDB has been in service for around 18 years. The GLSDBs are not however currently used by the U.S. military. Ukraine was the first to use it in real combat conditions.
To speed up the delivery to Ukraine, the U.S. reportedly developed special launchers for the munitions, which are not yet compatible with the M270 MLRS and the M142 HIMARS systems already supplied to Kiev forces.
LaPlante also revealed that the U.S. government truncated the usual testing requirements to expedite the weapons system’s acquisition. As a result, the weapon was “produced as quickly as possible.”
“And what happens is, when you send something to people in the fight of their lives, [and] it doesn’t work, they’ll try it three times and then they just throw it aside; so that’s what happened,” the official concluded.
The GLSDB was promoted by the mainstream media in the West as yet another “Wunderwaffe”. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced the first interception of the munition in March of last year. In later months, the remains of several munitions of this type were found in remote areas in the special military operation after they were apparently jammed by Russian electronic warfare.
The failure of the system highlight the doctrine followed by the U.S. and its allies in the current conflict, which is based on throwing money on anything demanded by Kiev forces and relying on their own propaganda over facts.
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