October 3, 2007: While the
United States pioneered the development and use of laser guided bombs, there
are plenty of competitors. Since 1968, American firms have produced over 40,000
laser guided bombs, mostly for the U.S. Air Force and Navy. Russia soon
developed their own, after noting that these bombs were more than eight times
as accurate as unguided bombs. The Russian knockoffs of the American laser guided
bombs were cheaper, but less reliable. In the 1980s, the U.S. Air Force
introduced the Paveway series, the most successful laser guided bomb design
ever. The U.S. has two suppliers for laser guided bombs, Lockheed and Raytheon,
and the completion between these two keeps the innovations coming. Other
nations took a shot a building laser guided bombs. But the only real
competition for American laser guided bombs has been Israel, where Elbit
developed the Lizard series of weapons. These compete directly with the
Paveway, providing more features and lower price to get sales. Both Paveway and
Lizard feature "fire and forget capabilities, plus several other targeting
options. But there is not so much difference between the latest Paveway and the
Lizard that there is a stampede to the Israeli bombs. The Paveway is old
reliable. With a 40 year track record, it will take some serious competition to
take a significant bit of market share from Paveway.
Meanwhile, Israel is still
using, and buying, Paveway bombs. That's mainly because of the billions of
dollars in military aid that Israel gets each year. The Israelis are expected
to buy American weapons with this money, unless they want to see this funding
cut off by a wrathful Congress.
