"JASSM Chasm in Design, Quality, Cost" was first published by Defense News and is reproduced below.

"JASSM Chasm in Design, Quality, Cost"
by Lee Gaillard

After 13 long years in development, the $7.1 billion Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) was reported still to be missing its target 40 percent of the time in early 2009 testing.

This problematic program was in jeopardy two years ago, and at the 2007 Paris Air Show, the head of U.S. Air Force procurement was evaluating Europe's Taurus and Storm Shadow cruise missiles as possible JASSM replacements.

JASSM's test failure rate since December 2006 had been 42 percent, along with cost overruns reported to Congress. Of roughly 600 JASSMs then fielded, more than 500 were estimated to have flaws lurking in their GPS guidance systems. JASSM barely survived cancellation by Congress in 2008.

Fast forward to 2009: The Air Force is withholding production funding pending the results of last month's scheduled Lot 6 testing, which has now been delayed to allow for replacement of still more faulty components.

We've been there before: Problems two years ago included engine, warhead, power, electrical and other systems, and detonation failure. In a UPI Internet Outside View Webcast on Oct. 25, 2007, Steven Barnoske, Lockheed Martin's JASSM program director, promised that "technical teams have dissected data from test failures, identified root causes and developed corrective action plans that we have validated in a series of laboratory and field tests."

But since then, 50 percent of Lot 5 testing failures has stemmed from poor quality signal cabling, with another 25 percent from more faulty fuses. During one of the most recent tests, a JASSM well into its strike profile suddenly departed controlled flight and crashed.

"We have been unable to duplicate [the anomaly] at this time," said Col. Steve Demers, the Air Force's JASSM program manager, in an interview in the July 27 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology.

Now, consider that a missile originally expected to cost roughly $400,000 is currently going for almost $1 million apiece, despite its dismal performance. Over the last two years, the diminution in failure rate has been a minuscule 2 percentage points, from 42 percent in 2007 to 40 percent in 2009. Meanwhile, the total program cost has risen from $5.8 billion estimated in 2007 to $7.1 billion in 2009. For what? For more promises, and a growing stockpile of faulty missiles that are already obsolete.

Obsolete? Barnoske asserted, "It is ... the only cruise missile in the world to incorporate state-of-the-art stealth technologies."

While JASSM may have some stealth qualities, it cruises at Mach 0.8 and can be acquired visually. In one test flight, according to the July 2000 issue of Armed Forces Journal International, it took 22 minutes to cover 210 miles. It would have been an easy target for layered, networked, multisensor air defense systems employing Russian-made S-300PMU, SA-10D surface-to-air missiles and their SA-N-6 ship-based counterparts. These and more advanced point-defense systems are now deployed by Russia, China, Iran and others.

Question: What has happened to the cutting-edge research and development at which we once excelled? Why are we attempting to produce this increasingly unaffordable, flawed subsonic standoff cruise missile when France, Russia, China and India have fielded far more advanced and more survivable supersonic equivalents?

A partial sampling: France's inertially guided, ramjet-powered Mach 2-3 ASMP standoff (200-mile-range) nuclear armed cruise missile entered service 23 years ago.

India's air-launchable Mach 2.5+ BrahMos ramjet land-attack and antiship cruise missile (a Russia-India joint venture), with 80- to 200-mile range depending on altitude, carries a 660-pound warhead and employs preset inertial navigation with alternating inertial/active radar terminal guidance. Being considered for export to South Africa, Chile, Malaysia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, it is in service with India's Navy and Army.

Then there's Russia's Kh-41 Moskit, launchable from variants of the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker supersonic fighter jet in service with both China and Russia. Moskit is a version of Russia's highly respected SS-N-22 Sunburn, a sea-skimming Mach 2.5 carrier-busting ramjet cruise missile with a range of 100 miles and a 660-pound high explosive warhead (with alternate 200-kiloton nuclear capability).

Incredibly fast and maneuverable on the deck, it needs no stealth enhancement. Operational for 25 years in various forms, it has been deployed by Russia, China and Iran. According to Combat Fleets of the World, it is a "very sophisticated weapon against which other navies have yet to develop an effective countermeasure." The United States included.

Meanwhile, out of the program goal of 4,900 missiles, 779 JASSMs have been delivered but many await new fuses and other replacement parts. Further testing (and production) cannot occur until recent glitches are fixed, and even then our obsolete JASSM will approach its targets at perhaps one-third the speed of the foreign counterparts mentioned above.

What we need is a supersonic standoff missile that is, like the Moskit, ground- or wave-hugging and highly maneuverable in a Mach 2.5 terminal phase. Will the Pentagon continue to feed its 13-year obsession and once again ramp up the JASSM production line, or will it finally cancel this ineffective and increasingly expensive program?

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Lee Gaillard writes articles and book reviews on aviation and defense issues.