Pentagon mulls sending 100-mile strike weapon to Ukraine: report

The Pentagon is considering a Boeing proposal to supply Ukraine with cheap, small precision bombs fitted onto abundantly available rockets, allowing Kiev to strike far behind Russian lines as the West struggles to meet demand for more arms.

Boeing's proposed system, dubbed Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), is one of about a half-dozen plans for getting new munitions into production for Ukraine and America's Eastern European allies, industry sources told Reuters news agency.

US and allied military inventories are shrinking, and Ukraine faces an increasing need for more sophisticated weapons as the war drags on.

The GLSDB could be delivered as early as spring 2023, according to a document reviewed by Reuters and three people familiar with the plan.

It combines the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) with the M26 rocket motor, both of which are common in US inventories.

Doug Bush, the US Army's chief weapons buyer, told reporters at the Pentagon last week the Army was also looking at accelerating production of 155 millimetre artillery shells - currently only manufactured at government facilities - by allowing defence contractors to build them.

Russian incursion into Ukraine drove up demand for weapons and ammunition, while US allies in Eastern Europe are "putting a lot of orders," in for a range of arms as they supply Ukraine, Bush added.

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US inventories declining

"It's about getting quantity at a cheap cost," said Tom Karako, a weapons and security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He said falling US inventories help explain the rush to get more arms now, saying stockpiles are "getting low relative to the levels we like to keep on hand and certainly to the levels we're going to need to deter a China conflict."

Karako also noted that the US exit from Afghanistan left lots of air-dropped bombs available. They cannot be easily used with Ukrainian aircraft, but "in today's context we should be looking for innovative ways to convert them to standoff capability."

A Boeing spokesperson declined to comment.

Pentagon spokesperson Lt Cmdr Tim Gorman, also declined to comment on providing any "specific capability" to Ukraine, but said the US and its allies "identify and consider the most appropriate systems" that would help Kiev.

Although the United States has rebuffed requests for the 185-mile (297km) range ATACMS missile, the GLSDB's 94-mile (150km) range would allow Ukraine to hit valuable military targets that have been out of reach and help it continue pressing its counterattacks by disrupting Russian rear areas.

GLSDB is made jointly by SAAB AB and Boeing Co and has been in development since 2019, well before the February 24 offensive, which Russia calls a "special military operation". In October, SAAB chief executive Micael Johansson said of the GLSDB: "We are imminently shortly expecting contracts on that."

According to the document - a Boeing proposal to US European Command (EUCOM), which is overseeing weapons headed to Ukraine - the main components of the GLSDB would come from current US stores.

The M26 rocket motor is relatively abundant, and the GBU-39 costs about $40,000 each, making the completed GLSDB inexpensive and its main components readily available.

 Although arms manufacturers are struggling with demand, those factors make it possible to yield weapons by early 2023, albeit at a low rate of production.

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