Navy want precision weapons that don't endanger civilians.

Navy fighter-bombers in the future will be equipped with smaller, multifunctional munitions that will give pilots a broader array of options for attacking ground targets than the 1,000- or 2,000-pound bombs they now use.

The war in Iraq, where enemy targets are intermixed in the civilian population, has sparked a rethinking in weapon requirements for naval aviators, says Rear Adm. Thomas J. Kilcline Jr., director of the Navy Air Warfare Division.

The emphasis is on "flexible" weapons, Kilcline tells National Defense. "In the global war on terrorism, most targets are fleeting and integrated in urban operations," he says. The upshot is that aviators cannot drop large bombs without putting large numbers of civilians and potentially friendly troops at risk.

"We want to make sure the size of the warhead makes sense," Kilcline adds. He envisions a spectrum of new weapons that are equipped with "selectable warheads," which would allow pilots to pick and choose based on the mission at hand. They could opt for a shaped charge warhead to strike an armored vehicle, for example, or a small fragmentation warhead to defeat softer targets.

Close-air support missions in Iraq have under-scored the need for a direct-attack weapon that can hit moving targets, says Kilcline.

The Navy had anticipated such a weapon would materialize in the form of the "joint common missile" that the Army also had decided to buy. It would have replaced the Army's Hellfire and the Navy's Maverick air-to-ground missiles. The Defense Department cancelled the $5 billion program last year, as part of a broad cost-cutting effort, and asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to come up with other, less expensive options to replace the JCM.

Kilcline says that, in the absence of JCM, the services may support a "follow-on" system. "We are trying to figure out, with the Army and the Marine Corps, how we move to the future."

The JCM contractor, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, would no longer receive government funds for the program after September 30, 2005, although it is still possible that congressional action will extend the project into next year, or at least until the missile completes its "critical design review," says Steve Barnoske, JCM program director at Lockheed Martin.

Both the Army and the Navy remain interested in JCM, and the Defense Department may decide that no alternatives exist in the foreseeable future, Barnoske says.

The counterinsurgency in Iraq proves that the services need a missile that can provide precision attack with low "collateral damage," he adds. It also demonstrates the value of a multipurpose warhead that can engage soft or hard targets, bunkers, armored vehicles or patrol boats, as well as moving targets in adverse weather, says Barnoske. The pilot can select the warhead mode, based on the target.

If the program is revived, Lockheed estimates each missile would cost $80,000, assuming a long-term production contract.

The steep price tag of the JCM is attributed to a sophisticated tri-mode seeker that packages a semi-active laser, a millimeter-wave radar and a heat-seeking infrared sensor. Current Hellfire missiles are either laser-guided or millimeter-wave radar guided. The Maverick is a heat-seeking missile that uses infrared and TV sensors to locate the target.

Each of the three guidance technologies-laser, millimeter-wave radar and infrared-has been employed for years, in various weapons. Mixing all three in a small enough package to fit on the nose of a 108-pound missile is technically complex, but achievable, experts say. What makes the JCM attractive, officials say, is the missile's performance in adverse weather against moving targets and in urban combat. One of the requirements, for example, is to be able to penetrate an 18-inch concrete wall and have the warhead detonate on the other side.