PROCUREMENT: Increased Reaper Arsenal Will Enable the Reaper to Destroy a Wider Range of Targets.

By releasing a GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munition from a MQ-9 Reaper in a live weapons exercise, the Air Force made history and vastly widened the attack envelope, target set and mission scope for its workhorse drone.

The GPS-guided GBU-38 precision bomb, dropped at Nellis Air Force Base Nevada, brings new offensive strike ability to the Reaper drone – a 66-foot medium altitude aircraft often used for both ISR and precision strikes on enemy targets.

The Reaper will now fire the AGM-114 Hellfire missile, a 500-pound laser-guided weapon called the GBU-12 Paveway II, and GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munitions or JDAMs – free-fall bombs engineered with a GPS and Inertial Navigation Systems guidance kit, Air Force acquisition officials told Scout Warrior. JDAM technology allows the weapons to drop in adverse weather conditions and pinpoint targets with “smart” accuracy.

Skynet smiles.