Article Posted on : - Nov 10, 2010

Small Diameter Bomb Increment I (SDB I)

ST. LOUIS (BNS): Boeing has received a $106 million extended contract from US Air Force, for the supply of 2,700 Small Diameter Bomb Increment I (SDB I) munitions and approximately 380 BRU-61 carriages.

The company will deliver the munitions and carriages by January 2012.

The Lot 7 production order is the seventh option exercised by the Air Force’s Air Armament Center and it contains most SDB I weapons ordered in a single lot.

Since 2003, Boeing has delivered approx 7,000 munitions and 1,200 carriages to the Air Force under Lots 1 to 5.

A total of 12,379 munitions and 2,059 carriages comprise under Lots 1 to 7.

"Boeing and the US Air Force have worked together to expand SDB I’s mission capability from a long-range standoff weapon into a weapon that also minimizes flight time to target -- a capability that is ideal for close air support in today’s ever-changing battlefield,” Debbie Rub, Boeing Military Aircraft vice president of Missiles and Unmanned Airborne Systems, said.

By the end of this year the company will deliver the 2,613 munitions and 472 carriages of Lot 6, which is three months ahead of schedule.

SDB I is a 250-pound class, low-cost and low-collateral-damage precision strike weapon. It incorporates a steel case and penetrating blast-fragmentation warhead.

The weapon’s smaller size, coupled with its four-place carriage, enables more weapons to be carried on each aircraft to improve mission effectiveness and reduce the number of sorties required per mission.

The Focused Lethality Munition (FLM) variant provides even lower collateral damage effects with the use of a composite case warhead.