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American Morning

America Strikes Back: What Makes a Smart Weapon Smart?

Aired October 10, 2001 - 09:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Back, now, to the military fronts. So- called smart weapons -- one key in the current war against terrorism. But, we have a question. What makes a weapon so smart?

Miles O'Brien standing by. Said to be smarter than they even were two years ago. Is that right, Miles?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes. What makes a weapon smart? A little bit of guidance. Sort of takes you back to high school, in a sense. Let's look at what makes a dumb bomb a smart weapon, as we look at a graphic we put together, here.

(voice-over): This is an F-15. It's flying along and we're going to show you the most common of the smart weapons: laser-guided. Take a look at this. This is laser beam, which can be painted onto a target by either another aircraft, as seen here. This is not entirely accurate to the moment, because the A-6 is no longer in the fleet and not used for this role. But, typically that F-15-E Strike Eagle could paint its own laser target at a target or, as we see here, as a matter of fact, there's -- and it gives you that indication.

And the weapon, itself, actually detects the laser, itself, and is -- aims with that capability. You can also have a person on the ground aiming a laser at a target. The weapon arrives. Now this was -- these weapons were the ones that -- during the gulf war, you saw those incredible shots of bombs going down chimneys. Those were laser- guided weapons, there. It is the most numerous in the inventory. About 25,000 of them in the Pentagon arsenal.

Cruise missile, another smart weapon. There's a couple of ways it does this. Some of the newer cruise missiles are updated with global-positioning systems. That's a satellite-guided system. We'll tell you a little bit more about that in a moment. But basically, what's inside here, a brain which recognizes this. It recognizes the terrain. It is fed into a computer, inside the cruise missile. As it flies along toward its target, it compares what it is seeing with what's in its memory. Based on that terrain, literally matching contours, just like that, along the edge, and knowing where to fly, as a result.

So, the cruise missile has some capability that is not related to the global positioning system. Although newer cruise missiles do have GPS, as well as this system, which allows to follow terrain. Finally, GPS global positioning system, this is system which has led to all sorts of consumer products -- 17 satellites orbiting the earth. They were put up by the military. They're run by the air force. Constantly orbiting the earth, and at any given moment, there are at least four, overhead, one hopes, for a bomb to be guided down to its target. Two would be a minimum, Four would be ideal.

Once the weapon is fired, with this GPS pack, it's called JDAM, for Joint Direct Attack Munition. Takes a dumb bomb and makes it smart. It basically sends signals to the wings, or canards, on the bombs and guides down, in a precise way, to its target. The big advantage to the JDAM, satellite-guided bomb,

(on camera): over the more widely used laser weaponry, is that it is not weather-dependent. If there is fog or clouds or a dust storm, those laser weapons can be spoofed by that. In the case of the satellite weapons, the weather doesn't matter a bit. So that just gives you some of the smart bombs that are in the inventory, right now.

If you want to find out a little bit more about this, a lot of weaponry that the Pentagon is using, as well as recent images of the damage that the Pentagon is telling us about, supposedly this particular site right here, Supposedly an Al Qaeda camp -- training camp that was leveled in one of the first nights of bombing, we invite you check out CNN.com. So, what you need to stay smart, Bill, is a little bit of guidance.

HEMMER: We've got it now. Much appreciated, the education on smart bombs and smart weapons.

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