Submunitions

Abstract

Project Chicken Little provides best value research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) support to developmental smart munitions and related emerging weapons technologies employed against a wide variety of vehicle targets, theater air defense units, and other foreign ground-based systems. Combat systems exhibit physical characteristics (i.e.,signatures), as well as certain vulnerabilities, which may be exploited by smart weapons in order to eliminate or incapacitate these systems. Chicken Little collects physical and functional attributes of actual foreign threat systems to construct high-fidelity models for use in vulnerability assessments (i.e. evaluating the effectiveness of munitions against system vulnerabilities). Chicken Little also collects signature data with a variety of sensors on new and existing foreign targets, (attained, sustained, and maintained to be signature representative), both with and without the presence of countermeasures or camouflage; the resulting highly reliable, realistic performance data is used to support smart munitions' development by defining lethality and sensor requirements to aid in acquisition decision points. The project serves as a major focal point for joint target signature collection and dissemination for development and exploitation purposes. Customers include: the major Defense and Service Intelligence Centers, all Services, the Joint Technical Coordinating Group (JTCG) who develop the Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manuals (JMEMs), Combatant Commands, US Air Force Weapons School curriculum support, and others. Current projects include, but not limited to: target signature exploitation, target geometric modeling (for identifying vulnerabilities), improving air capabilities against protected structures (specifically hard and deeply buried targets), and testing of multiple seekers and sensors against realistic targets in various environments. This program is in Budget Activity 5, System Development and Demonstration (SDD) because it has passed Milestone B approval and is conducting engineering and manufacturing development tasks aimed at meeting validated requirements prior to full-rate production.

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Document Details

Document Type
R2 Budgetary Justification
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2012
Source ID
0604604F_5_3600_PB_2012
Change Summary Explanation
FY12 adjustment of $0.786M for representative sustainment of threat vehicles and acquisition of exploitation assets.
Service Agency Name
Air Force

Entities

Organizations

  • United States Air Force

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Air Defense
  • Air Force
  • Bomb Damage
  • Cost Analysis
  • Demonstrations
  • Emerging Threats
  • Ground Based
  • Munitions
  • Munitions Testing
  • Precision-Guided Munitions
  • Target Signatures
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Threats
  • Unified Combatant Commands
  • Vulnerability
  • Weapons

Readers

  • Military Science and Technology Research and Modernization.
  • Munitions and Ordnance Engineering
  • Sensor Fusion and Tracking Systems.

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