The French Directorate-General for Armaments (DGA) has awarded Safran a contract to develop and deliver a low cost version of its AASM H...
The French Directorate-General for Armaments (DGA) has awarded Safran a contract to develop and deliver a low cost version of its AASM Hammer air-to-ground missiles to arm French Navy and Air Force Dassault Rafale fighter jets.
The Block 4 version will have significantly reduced acquisition cost while retaining identical performance characteristics.
The AASM Hammer converts a NATO standard bomb in to a precision guided standoff weapon by adding a propulsion and guidance kit.
The kit converts a 250, 500 and 1000 kg bombs into precision guided bomb capable of all-weather, day/night precision ground strikes against fixed or moving targets at distance of more than 60 km.
Depending on the variants, the guidance system can be hybrid inertial/GPS guidance, inertial/GPS and terminal infrared guidance, and inertial/GPS plus laser terminal guidance.
Deliveries under the current order for unspecified numbers will begin in 2019. Additional order in several tranches will be placed in future.
To date more than half of the 3400 Hammer AASMs ordered has been delivered to French military which entered service in 2008.
