Tuesday, July 2, 2019

U.S. Air Force's Newest Air-To-Air Missile Is So Secretive That They Require A Custom Storage Bunker

USAF

Warzone/The Drive: New AIM-260 Missiles Are So Secretive They Will Require A Custom Storage Bunker At Hill AFB

Budget docs dated March of 2019 give the first official explanation of the program and why it needs a $6.5M high-security storage vault at Hill AFB.

Big news hit in late June that the USAF and the Navy have been well on their way to secretly developing an all-new beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile intended to replace the AIM-120 AMRAAM. The missile is officially called the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile, or JATM. The effort has been fast-tracked in order to counter rapid developments in long-range air-to-air missile capabilities among America's peer state competitors and especially China. You can read all about this new missile in our recent article on it linked here, but Air Force budget documents dating back to March of 2019 appear to have been the first source to detail the program and underline just how important the Pentagon thinks the secrecy surrounding it is to national security.

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WNU Editor: This air-to-air missile must contain a lot of secrets.

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