The U.S. Air Force is moving toward procuring the Lockheed Martin [LMT] AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM), Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on May 2.
SASC Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.) told Kendall and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown at the May 2 hearing that he thinks that the service’s planned autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) “makes a great deal of sense.”
“One of the constraints I think we have is the number of missiles we have available for our aircraft right now and creating this autonomous capability with multitudes of other aircraft would compound our missile problem,” Reed said.
Kendall replied that the Air Force’s fiscal 2024 budget request adds about $1.5 billion for munitions procurement and requests multi-year buys of three missiles–the Raytheon Technologies [RTX] AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile and the Lockheed Martin AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile and the AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile.
“We’re also trying to increase the production capacity of the JATM when we get it into production,” Kendall said.
Brown said that the Air Force’s requested $1.5 billion increase for munitions in fiscal 2024 “will help to facilitize an increased production rate, not only for AMRAAM but JATM, which is a follow-on to AMRAAM and is also gonna be an important aspect to support the Collaborative Combat Aircraft.”
The Air Force and the Navy are to field JATM on the Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35 fighters and the Boeing [BA] F/A-18E/F fighter.
In 2019, the Air Force said that it was developing JATM to counter the Chinese-made PL-15 air-to-air missile (Defense Daily, June 20, 2019). JATM is to have a longer range than the AIM-120D. While the Air Force has divulged little about JATM and has said that its capabilities are classified, defense analysts have said that the missile will likely have a speed of Mach 4 to 5 and a range of 120 to 150 miles.