BROACH warhead

The BROACH warhead is an advanced multi-stage warhead developed by Team BROACH; BAE Systems Land Systems Munitions & Ordnance, Thales Missile Electronics and QinetiQ. BROACH stands for "Bomb Royal Ordnance Augmented CHarge".

Development of BROACH began in 1991 when Team BROACH consisted of British Aerospace RO Defence, Thomson-Thorn Missile Electronics and DERA. The two stage warhead is made up from an initial shaped charge, which cuts a passage through armour, concrete, earth, etc, allowing a larger following warhead to penetrate inside the target. The weapon is designed to allow a cruise missile to achieve the degree of hard-target penetration formerly only possible by the use of laser-guided gravity bombs.

Applications

*Storm Shadow/SCALP EG
*AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon unitary variant (JSOW-C) [ [http://www.na.baesystems.com/releasesDetail.cfm?a=127 "BAE Systems JSOW Unitary BROACH program enters operational test" - BAE Systems plc (Jan. 5, 2004) Press release.] ]
*BROACH was evaluated as a possible warhead for the AGM-86D CALCM but was ultimately not selected. [ [http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/1999/news_release_991202o.htm Boeing Selects Lockheed Martin to Provide CALCM Hard-Target Warhead] ]

References