ST. LOUIS, Dec. 17, 1996 -- McDonnell Douglas today delivered the first flight test Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response (SLAM ER) to the U.S. Navy in a ceremony at the McDonnell Douglas missile facility in St. Charles, Mo.
This event marks the start of a 13-missile flight test program. Approximately 700 missiles will be delivered to the U.S. Navy with production expected to continue to 2004. Low-rate initial production of 60 missiles will begin in April 1997. The majority of these missiles will be kits retrofitted to existing SLAMs.
Among those present at the ceremony were the Honorable Christopher Bond, U.S. Senate; the Honorable James Talent, U.S. House of Representatives; Lt. Gen. Terry Dake, Deputy Chief of Staff for Aviation; Rear Adm. Steve Briggs, N880 Aviation Requirements; Rear Adm. Barton Strong, Program Executive Officer, Cruise Missiles and Joint Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Project; and Capt. Rob Freedman, Program Manager, Anti-Ship Weapon Systems, PMA-258.
"SLAM ER is an invaluable addition to the fleet," said Capt. Rob Freedman. "Harpoon and SLAM have a rich tradition of combat effectiveness. We're confident that SLAM ER will not only continue that tradition, but expand the envelope."
"This is an exciting day for McDonnell Douglas. SLAM ER is the result of more than 25 years of missile production and innovation," commented James Restelli, vice president of missile systems for McDonnell Douglas. "We've taken everything we've learned about making missiles and incorporated that knowledge into making SLAM ER the world's premier surgical strike missile available today," he said.
SLAM ER is an affordable inventory upgrade to the SLAM weapon system. These upgrades include reduced mission planning time allied to missile changes which decrease operator work load, increase missile range, increase warhead penetration and lethality, improve anti-jam performance and increase data link control range. SLAM ER consists of both hardware and software upgrades to the missile and incorporates many non-developmental items, such as the Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System.
SLAM ER incorporates a user-friendly mission planning system which reduces the time required to plan a mission from hours to minutes.
The McDonnell Douglas-developed Autonomous Target Recognition system will provide even greater warfighting capability for SLAM ER in the future.
SLAM ER provides the U.S. Navy with surgical strike capability against high-value, fixed land targets, ships in port or ships at sea. Designed for deployment from carrier-based and land-based attack aircraft, SLAM ER can easily be adapted for ship launch. Sea SLAM, another SLAM derivative, was successfully test launched in April 1996. SLAM ER can be launched from safe standoff ranges in excess of 150 nautical miles at low level.
McDonnell Douglas has produced in excess of 8,600 cruise missiles for the U.S. Department of Defense and has 24 international Harpoon customers.
SLAM ER will be built at the McDonnell Douglas St. Charles facility. The program employs 200 people.
96-319
McDonnell Douglas
(314) 234-6996