Today, February 3, the Pentagon announced the provision of a new package of military assistance to Ukraine. The list of approved support includes armored vehicles with mine protection, artillery shells, air defense systems, but GLSDB missiles are the most important part of the new package..

GLSDB is the latest development of the American company Boeing and the Swedish SAAB. The abbreviation stands for "

The main characteristics of the product:.

Weight - 130 kg.

Length - 1800 mm.

Destruction range - up to 150 km.

Warhead weight - 93 kg.

Launch platforms - M270, HIMARS.

GLSDB has two components, which were combined by Boeing. It consists of a serial GBU-39 aerial bomb, which has been in service with the US Army for many years, and an M26 rocket engine for NATO-caliber MLRS..

The M26 missiles themselves were developed in parallel with the M270 installations in the 1980s.. They were uncontrollable and had a range of only 35 kilometers, which later became a significant drawback for NATO countries.. In the 2000s, the M26 began to be replaced by new M30A1, M30A2 and M31 guided munitions - exactly the same that Ukrainian HIMARS are now equipped with..

Consequently, the question arose of disposing of old M26 missiles and their engines.. Boeing and SAAB designers have proposed their own version of the modernization of old missiles. She assumed an increase in the engine resource and the installation of the GBU-39 bomb instead of the old warhead.. This upgrade option made it possible not only to increase the range of HIMARS and M270 ammunition, but also to make new products much cheaper..

Currently, a new type of missile is not yet in service with any country.. The final tests of the GLSDB took place only in 2015, after which Boeing did not receive an order for this weapon.. This is not surprising, because NATO countries have means of a much larger range. Air-launched and sea-launched Tomahawk or JASSM missiles can hit targets at ranges of more than 1000 km, so there is no need for new Boeing and SAAB products.

At the same time, for Ukraine, GLSDB missiles will become a completely new opportunity to fire at Russian targets in the occupied Crimea, as well as in remote areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.. For example, the Dzhankoysky airfield, the occupying air base in Chaplinka and military depots in the Donbass, where the Russians have been delivering weapons since 2014, would be in the affected area..

[see_also ids\u003d"

Recall, there was also information that the UK could transfer to Ukraine its analogue of ATACMS missiles with a range of up to 300 kilometers..