(Point Mugu) Since
the end of the cold war, the US like many other western nations downsized its military
forces and diverted the money saved towards other projects. Unfortunately that
so called era of peace and understanding went out of the window when countries
such as Russia/China/North Korea and Iran upped their military expenditure. That hasn't been helped with how the west has
spent the last 16 years fighting a primarily asymmetrical war across the globe,
which has resulted in a lot of money being spent on fighting terrorism, be it
new body or vehicle armour, new mine resistant vehicles , UAVs and of course the low collateral damage
weapons (Brimstone/JDAMS/SDB)
Missile range graph taken from this document |
LRASM comes to the table with a long range (200 miles) and a large warhead, 1,000 pounds. It is designed to navigate autonomously around enemy radar and defences, by using artificial intelligence In otherwords it is designed to to be sneaky, which combined with its stealth features means it should be able to hit the enemy without giving them time to react. Hopefully allowing the US military to get back into the game. Mind you, I think the Anti-ship missile to watch is the Japanese