The Conventional Strike Weapons Program Office, PMA-201, has completed testing of the Bomb Royal Ordnance Augmenting Charge (BROACH) warhead manufactured by British Aerospace, Royal Ordnance Division.
BROACH is one of three foreign warheads tested by the Navy under the Defense Department's Foreign Comparative Test (FCT) program. The program provided more than $7 million to the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) FCT program to conduct tests on warheads from Israel, France and the United Kingdom.
The tests demonstrated the blast, fragmentation and penetration capabilities of the warheads, and assessed their insensitive munitions performance to determine their application to the JSOW Unitary, Standoff Land Attack Missile - Expanded Response and other DOD weapons programs. The JSOW Unitary FCT program manager, Marianne Martin, conducted eight lethality and insensitive munitions tests of BROACH during a six-week period, which concluded May 21 at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.
The success of the recent tests were made possible with outstanding efforts of Royal Ordnance's Ian Forsyth and David Edwards, who delivered the warheads months ahead of schedule; and Matthew Lear and Neal Lundwall, test team leaders from Eglin and China Lake, Calif., respectively, who carried out the testing programs in record time without a single glitch. Also, Stephen Bullock, Naval Air Systems Command's International Programs Division (AIR-1.4), was instrumental in acquiring DOD funds needed to complete the BROACH tests.
Test reports on the Israeli, French and United Kingdom warheads are being provided to Raytheon Systems Company, the JSOW prime contractor, to support a JSOW Unitary improved warhead cost/benefit analysis that will conclude this fall.
(Report submitted by JSOW Unitary FCT program manager's office)
Last updated: 6.11.98