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[13.0] Comments, Sources, & Revision History

v1.6.0 / chapter 13 of 13 / 01 nov 06 / greg goebel / public domain

* This chapter closes the discussion by providing miscellaneous comments, a list of sources, and a revision history.

[13.1] PERSONAL COMMENTS
[13.2] SOURCES
[13.3] REVISION HISTORY

[13.1] PERSONAL COMMENTS

* While this document attempts to discuss a wide range of air-launched guided and unguided munitions, many of the decisions on what was or wasn't included were somewhat arbitrary.

The distinctions between different classes of airborne weapons can be fuzzy and slight. The GBU-15/B TV-guided glide bomb, for example, was implemented by simply putting tailfins and a TV seeker nose on a standard "slick" dumb bomb. The AGM-130 was a direct extension of that glide bomb series into a "stand-off" missile by adding a rocket booster, and the AGM-130TJ replaces the rocket booster with a small jet engine, turning the weapon into a cruise missile.

Strategic cruise missiles such as ALCM and Tomahawk are not discussed here, as cruise missiles are the subject of the companion CRUISE MISSILES document. Anti-tank missiles that can be either ground-launched or air-launched, such as TOW and Hellfire, were also not discussed in this document, as they seemed more appropriate to a survey of antitank weapons. This is somewhat arbitrary, since most versions of the Maverick are really intended for the anti-armor mission. Adding Copperhead and GPS-guided artillery rounds muddies the issue further, the justification being that these munitions have so much in common with LGBs and GPS-guided bombs that it makes sense to include them here.

I never really planned to write this document. I found an article on laser-guided bombs in AVIATION WEEK in October 1996. I wanted to slum a bit and throw together something quickly to keep up my monthly production of aviation documents. This led to a short document on LGBs, and then a few other documents on other guided weapons, and one thing led to another. Finally, after a number of years I decided to do a job of it, which led to a great deal of frustrating detective work. The first revision was released in 1999, with further revisions following every year or two.

The result is still sketchier than I like; leaves a lot of questions unanswered; is still not comprehensive; and deals with so many items that keeping track of the details was a nightmare. Coverage of Soviet-Russian weapons is thin, though more information is gradually becoming available. However, the existing document provides a good starting place for learning more.

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[13.2] SOURCES

* Sources for this document include:

I acquired all the back issues of WORLD AIR POWER JOURNAL and WINGS OF FAME in mid-1999, and currently subscribe to the successor to these two publications, the INTERNATIONAL AIR POWER REVIEW. I have used the my archive of these magazines as a major source for this document. I have not generally cited specific issues, since I found tiny (and often frustratingly terse) bits and pieces of materials on air-launched munitions in a large number of them.

I found various old volumes of JANE'S ALL THE WORLD AIRCRAFT in local libraries and uncovered various fragments of information in them as well. Alas, JANE'S also tends to be terse, and in the last decade or so air-launched missiles were relegated to a specific JANE's on missiles instead of being part of the aircraft publication. Since this volume is unbelievably expensive, it is hard to find.

I performed many searches of the Web to see if I could find anything of use. This was a major scavenger hunt that yielded many bits and pieces of information, though there were a few more substantial websites as well. One of the most interesting, as mentioned, was the "English Bombs Of World War II" page, which was a neat little article with nice details on Barnes Wallis and his bombs. The Federation Of American Scientists website contains many documents on specific munitions, plus a little tutorial named "Bombs For Beginners". Many minor details were also obtained from the MISSILES.INDEX website in Japan.

The Boeing and USAF Eglin websites were good sources for many of the new smart weapons. The website for the USAF Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio was also useful. When I visited the museum a few years back, I was surprised to find the obscure US glide bombs well represented among the exhibits. Then I learned most of them had been developed there. "Duh."

Recent revisions of this document have been assisted by Andreas Parsch's excellent website, DIRECTORY OF US MILITARY ROCKETS & MISSILES. Mr. Parsch is clearly attempting to provide a definitive reference on the topic and goes into maximum detail, and those who want more data than provided here (at least on US weapons) would certainly find it very interesting.

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[13.3] REVISION HISTORY

* The individual articles on which this document is based were initially released with the following titles, in the following order:

Assembling the initial v1.0 version of this document was a burnout exercise, and I released it on 1 November 1999, even though I knew there were bugs in it. I'd gone blind looking at it and there was no point pretending I could do a good job of polishing it. I waited two months and then polished it, leading to the v1.1 release in January 2000. Surprisingly, even over that short interval the revision was more than merely cosmetic, with a dozen or more significant changes, corrections, and additions, as well as cleaned-up or new illustrations.

The subject remains a moving target; later revisions have also often been substantial. In fact, as of the v1.6.0 version, I had to trim back on a lot of the material on future weapon development programs, since the information was often sketchy or inconsistent, and much of the time such programs end up getting the axe anyway. I saw no point in cluttering up the document with noise and have become more careful to try to ensure that I have signal.

* Revision history: 

   v1.0   / 01 nov 99 / gvg
   v1.1   / 01 jan 00 / gvg / Polishing and minor updates.
   v1.2   / 01 feb 01 / gvg / Incremental upgrade with refinements.
   v1.3.0 / 01 feb 02 / gvg / Incremental upgrade with format changes.
   v1.4.0 / 01 aug 02 / gvg / Incremental upgrade.
   v1.4.1 / 01 dec 02 / gvg / Rewrite of laser pod material, other changes.
   v1.5.0 / 01 nov 04 / gvg / Yanked cruise missiles, general update.
   v1.6.0 / 01 nov 06 / gvg / Cleanup and simplification.
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