Turkey Orders 50 SLAM-ER Missiles for Land Attack
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The USA Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Turkey of 50 AGM-84K Joint Standoff Land Attack Missiles-Expanded Response (SLAM-ER) as well as associated equipment and services.
As DID has previously noted, Boeing’s SLAM-ER is an advanced derivative of the Harpoon missile, and competes with precision attack missiles like Lockheed’s JASSM, and European missiles like the EADS Taurus KEPD 350 and the MBDA Storm Shadow. It is deployed with the US Navy, and will be deployed on the South Korea’s new F-15K Strike Eagles. Turkey will use the SLAM-ER as a medium-range standoff weapon on its F-16 aircraft, where it will complement the recently acquired but shorter-range Lockheed JSOW precision glide bomb. The order includes:
- 50 AGM-84K Joint Standoff Land Attack Missiles-Expanded Response (SLAM-ER)
- 4 Captive Air Training missiles/Dummy/Recoverable Air Test
- 5 AWW-13 Advanced Weapon Data Link Pods
- Containers
- 5 Joint Mission Planning Systems
- Software development/integration
- Test sets and support equipment
- Spare and repair parts, publications and technical data, maintenance
- Personnel training and training equipment
- U.S. Government (USG) and contractor representatives, contractor engineering and technical support services, and other related elements of logistics support.
The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $162 million.
The DSCA avers that this proposed sale will not adversely affect either the military balance in the region, or U.S. efforts to encourage a negotiated settlement of the Cyprus question. It also adds that there are no known offset agreements proposed in connection with this potential sale, even though this is usually Turkish policy. Implementation of this proposed sale will require assignment of U.S. Government and contractor representatives to Turkey on a temporary basis for program technical/management oversight and support. See full DSCA release [PDF].
