A new trick in the sleeve of the Ukrainians? Since March 6, spectacular images from Ukraine have been circulating on social networks. Above, we see a district of the city of Kurdyumvka, in the oblast of Donetsk (east), being torn apart by a gigantic explosion. The city is under Russian occupation. In the images, we can see a single strike that shattered a block of houses housing Russian soldiers.
This strike, a first of its kind, was enabled by the system known to specialists by the acronym “JDAM” (Joint Direct Attack Munition or Joint Direct Attack Munition in French). Never, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, had the Americans promised to send this system to the regime in kyiv. Its delivery was only confirmed a posteriori, on March 7, by the head of the American air force in Europe, James Hecker, on the sidelines of a round table in the United States. “It’s a recent ability that we were able to give them probably in the last three weeks”he admitted.
Unlike the GLSDB, which is indeed a missile, the JDAM system is not a weapon strictly speaking. It is, in fact, according to the explanations of the manufacturer Boeing of a “low-cost guidance kit that converts existing unguided free-fall bombs into precision-guided ‘smart’ weapons”. Concretely, it is a “control unit” which allows you to enter GPS coordinates to tell a bomb where it should hit. The JDAM also includes a empennage, which allows the trajectory of the bomb to be corrected. Note that only bombs dropped from an airplane are affected by this system.