Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Kevin Brooks wrote:

"KDR" wrote in message
oups.com...
I was wondering if Boeing has proposed a helicopter-launched version of
SLAM-ER. Have you heard anything about this?

At nearly 1500 pounds and a length of fourteen feet, why would anyone
want
to bother?

Probably for the same reason that Exocet has been carried by Super
Frelons,
Sea Kings and Cougars for years.

But the USN does not operate under the same constraints that those services
do, and neither do we have any "attack" platforms in the Super Frelon
category.

A point I made below, but you said why would 'anyone' want to bother. Boeing's
SLAM-ER customers aren't necessarily restricted to the USN.

Sure beats closing into retaliation range

But being as we don't really envision sending roatary assets against that
kind of threat, it is sort of moot.

Again, _we_ don't.

with your skimmer. Of course, the USN is a lot better equipped with
fixed-wing
air than other navies, but that didn't stop them integrating Penguin and
Hellfire on their SH-60s.

Uhmmm...Penguin was envisioned as being used against comparitively small
enemy surface combatants (the sort that were not usually configured with
long range air defense systems). Hellfire even more so. I don't see much
chance of the USN being interested in trying to strap a 14-plus foot long
SLAM-ER onto the side of an SH-60 (unless maybe you were thinking they'd rig
a way to fire it from a slingload? :-) ).

Might be difficult size-wise (I'd have to scale it from a photo) on an SH-60,
but power and weight-wise an SH-60 has the same or more as a Sea King or
Cougar. Penguin isn't exactly small -- Gunston gives 10' 5.25" long x 11"
diameter, so Harpoon/SLAM is at least in the ballpark. Missile weight isn't an
issue-- carrying a pair of Penguins adds 1,766 lb, so a single SLAM-ER is
certainly doable with fuel internal fuel (4,012lb. for an "International Sea
Hawk" per Sikorsky's tech specs, and giving up an appropriate amount of internal
fuel would allow carriage of two. The ESSS on the Blackhawk is able to carry a
pair of 230 gal. tanks each side, so it doesn't appear that getting a pylon to
carry the weight of SLAM-ER would be a major problem. And there's a fair number
of naval users of the Sea Hawk, who might well want a true helo-launched
stand-off ASSM capability, as opposed to just an anti-FPB/sub capability.
Whether Boeing chooses to do this is a separate issue, but there's seems
adequate reason for someone to want to do it.

Guy