Bear in mind that ALCM derives from SCAD, which started life as a penetrating decoy to replace ADM-20. But then it was realised that when SCADs came over the horizon, the enemy would be alerted to an incoming strike. So, some SCADs were to be fitted with warheads to suppress the defences.

But if you’re fitting a portion with warheads, adding a warhead to all of them was nominal. And to deliver that, a decent guidance system…

Similarly as soon as an ISR cruise missile comes over the horizon you’ve given the game away. Any decent AAD system will chop-down a lone subsonic cruise missile without sweating. So you’ll have to have your mules very close behind, to swamp the defences. At which point why not make them self-targeting and remove the single point of failure?

I think it would depend on the level of stealth of the targetting missile, the capabilities of the EOTS and that of the submunition terminal seeker.

If the missile is stealthy, short range radars would probably not be able to detect if the EOTS has enough range. Longer range radars might pick it up but they would take a certain time to react.

Possibly the targetting missile could do 2 or 3 30 seconds popups from different angles to obtain video or high resolution images of the target. For instance an entire airfield could be scanned quickly. The missile could use image and video analysis techniques to find the exact position of each target by combining different images/videos taken from different angles. And it could even compare the images taken by its EOTS with satellite pictures to have better accuracy.

The mule missile could do a fast climb from 10-15km lasting like 10-20 seconds before ejecting its submunitions. The submunitions would have a wing kit to extend their range. By increasing the range with the wing kit, the area that could be covered would be much larger. The submunition would use its low cost terminal seeker to obtain a direct hit.

Using loitering submunitions could work too, but I think there would be more overkill. The submunition would be larger to have the mini motor, and would require a more sophisticated sensor I guess.

The targetting missile could be used against several targets, like several airfields, if they are not too far apart.

As you say, the choice depends on the survivability of the targetting missile.

A 50 Million UCAV needs to be compared to a couple of 300 million dollar fighters ( a minimalist back of the envelope calculation- 100 million procurement, plus 20-25K per hour for 8000 hours) as from a 1 Million hour (70K+ Sorties) data set on the Predator we know that 90% of the actual aircraft sorties were in combat. Of course we can’t yet replace all manned with unmanned, but even a 50-100 million dollar unmanned vehicle that is survivable, has stand off sensors and weapons is quite cheap compared to its manned equivalent. Not to mention that a UCAV can be made to achieve 2-3x the airframe life and that means a lot more than 2-3X in terms of number of years.

A 50 million unit replacement cost for a fighter size UAV, or 150 million for a stealthy UCLASS is still quite a lot. They are slow and unmaneuvrable, so if they are detected, they’re pretty much toast. They can’t shoot back AAMs to defend themselves.

They are surely more cost effective than fighters if the enemy air defense has been degraded.

And will the USAF have funds to field an operational UCAV, I doubt it.

On another hand, a super cruise missile may cost in the order of 2-3 million, but if you managed to use smart submunition the cost per target would decrease a lot. The targetting system can identify targets and select only high value targets like an aircraft or MBT. If you can datalink a targetting missile with other mule missiles, the mule missiles would be much less expensive. This would obvioulsy be only a niche capability for initial strikes.

Even in a medium intensity conflict, you’d see a sizable benefit of having a sensor laden ISR UAV providing cues to another UAV or manned platforms or dropping bombs itself. This when compared to launching hundreds of weapons with much less capability in terms of ISR and actual targeting. Not to say there isn’t a need for MALD-V like concept, but its not going to be a mainstream strike option. It’ll serve a niche. There is a reason why sensor craft, or RQ-180 like vehicle makes incredible sense.

A MALD-V type missile would be a niche capability, but that could still be important in high threat environments to go deep in enemy airspace. We don’t know all the black programs they have, they may well have some sort of ISR JASSM.

In that case you still need an aircraft to enter in enemy airspace because the loitering weapons wouldn’t have much range. Maybe they could have a range of 100km with say 15 min loitering time or something like that.

As for the UAV, it would still be rather big because it would have to come all the way from its base. It would still cost quite a lot.

What is the cost of an EOTS sensor? Next is cheap data links. What is the cost of a cheap data link? How much information can it share, and how far? ISR back and forth is a lot different from a mid flight update. How big do you want your pipeline, and how much will that cost? What is the cost of the processor that has to be not only highly capable but also packaged in a relatively small frame. And ultimately what is the cost for the back end to actually deal with so much information coming into the pipeline over a large battlefield? Thats the trick. I think the next step in cooperative engagement may well be LAN’s with a few vehicles working with weapons (MALD, and other future weapons) and unmanned to accomplish a tactical objective. Doing it over the entire battlefield is an “ultimate” distributed lethality target but we aren’t there yet and probably won’t get there for a lot many years (decades may be a better timeframe for that sort of capability)

Nothing in that proposal (with all due respect) suggests a CHEAP weapon. There is a reason why distributed ISR and strike is going to happen from UAV’s that either carry weapons or act as WAS for other strike.

BTW, Raytheon has suggested at an ISR payload for the MALD-V.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/261644179/Raytheon-Delivers-First-MALD-J-to-USAF-With-More-Upgrades-Planned-for-Decoy-Platform?secret_password=3yxRH2Jtr1WHXSDmHXq5

The cost of an EOTS would depend on the level of performance needed. I would just want the missile to stay outside the enemy lethal range. Maybe if the EOTS can detect targets from up to 15 km from altitude would be sufficient. The EOTS would have to be mounted on a gimballed system to observe the area from 90 degrees.

The datalinks between the targetting missile and the mule missile would not need a large bandwidth I think. There would be no video transmitted, maybe an image of the target, and even at that that may not be necessary.

For the cost of the processor, the cost decreases exponentially, so I don’t worry too much about that.

What I suggest is not that different from MALD-V but with the ability to talk to other missiles.

As for sending back the information to gatways far behind, I am not sure it it would be feasable. I don’t know how the MALD-V is supposed to do it.

UCAVs are quite expensive and can be shot down, especially in a very high threat environment. Using them would not necessarily be cheap either.

Another possibility about this idea would be to have only one type of missile with a very good sensor at the front ( although not as good as a targetting pod ), and the submunitions in a warhead section. Like say 10 x 5-10kg guided submunitions. If it all fits…

https://www.scribd.com/doc/261634702/Cooperative-autonomous-wide-area-search-munitions-with-capability-to-serve-as-non-traditional-ISR-assets-in-a-network-centric-environment?secret_password=XK6JJ9bxIjKDxxLbk0bM

It was a great idea, too bad it’s been cancelled ( like many other weapon systems ).

The question is, is it better to package powered loitering munitions inside a missile as submunitions, and let them search the targets while loitering, or have a much better seeker in the missile itself with subminitions that are not powered and have just a very basic terminal seeker for the impact? Both have advantages and disadvantages. On advantage of the second alternative is to avoid overkilling, and I think also overall the seekers would cost less.

A targetting missile like I described could also perform basic ISR on its way to its target. It could look for particular areas of interest ( road, bridges… ) and send back pictures.