"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
In message , Kevin Brooks
writes
"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
It absorbed various Navy and USAF projects like GAM and IAM, however
(GAM was flying captive-carry in 1989, IIRC)

Odd--nothing I have found via Google indicates GAM being around (in any
form) before about 1996 at the earliest, and IIRC 1998 was when it was
introduced to the B-2 force.

AIWS kicked off in March 1987: IAM went public in 1988 and in 1991
Friedman was speculating about how its accuracy could be improved if GPS
were used as a complement to inertial guidance. (IAM, not GAM, was
flying before 1991 - my mistake)

IAM definitely wants a good targeting sensor, though: GPS will fly to a
gridref, IAM didn't care where 'here' or 'there' is but started from
launch and went where it was told. Less dependence on satellite
navigation, but much more need for the launch aircraft to tell the
weapon "you are now HERE, and your target is HERE+INCREMENT, go kill!".

So we are back to the fact that we have not seen any GPS guided rounds
(minus that SLAM sort-of-GPS-guided-but-with-a-separate-terminal-seeker)
flying around until the latter part of the nineties.

Brooks


--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk