U.S. Air Force F-16 Vipers have been using 70mm laser-guided rockets to down Houthi drones during operations in and around the Red Sea in the past year. The service first announced it had demonstrated the ability to use Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rockets, originally developed to engage targets on the ground, as lower-cost, more numerous air-to-air weapons back in 2019, but this was just in testing. No operational capability has been disclosed, until now.
A U.S. military official exclusively confirmed the use of APKWS II in the air-to-air role to TWZ. The official could not immediately confirm how many of the rockets have been used in this manner, how many Houthi drones have been shot down as a result, or the exact date of the first use of this capability in combat. The Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen began launching drone, missile, and other attacks against foreign warships and commercial vessels in and around the Red Sea, as well as targets in Israel, in October 2023.
The APWKS II air-to-air capability was first employed last year “as one of many options for countering the Houthi UAS [uncrewed aerial systems] threat,” the official told us. “It is a lower-cost option compared to the AIM-9X. That lower cost is one of the benefits of using it.”
The unit cost of a current generation Block II subvariant of the AIM-9X Sidewinder is just under $420,000, according to Pentagon budget documents. For additional context, U.S. forces have also expended variants of the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), the price tags of which are more than $1 million each, in the course of operations against the Houthis. At present, a single APKWS II guidance and control section costs around $15,000, with another few thousand dollars required for the warhead and motor.
The only difference between APKWS IIs and standard unguided 70mm rockets is the insertion of the guidance and control section in between the warhead at the front and the motor at the rear. In this way, it has long offered a lower-cost precision-guided munition that can be created from existing components and provide a variety of different effects depending on the warhead (and fuze) used. In December 2023, the U.S. Navy said it was about to start delivering a new proximity-fuzed warhead specifically optimized for counter-drone use, though ostensibly to go with ground-based systems that use these laser-guided rockets in the surface-to-air role. The general ability of APKWS II rockets to work as surface-to-air interceptors has now been combat-proven in Ukraine.
Proximity-fuzed APKWS IIs would seem equally well suited for employment in the air-to-air role. As noted, the Air Force announced in 2019 that it had conducted what it described as a proof-of-concept test of the laser-guided rockets against aerial targets, primarily as a potential lower-cost option for knocking down subsonic cruise missiles. TWZ highlighted at the time how this same capability would be similarly useful against drones.
There had already been signs that the APKWS II in the air-to-air role had transitioned to an operational capability. In December, U.S. Air Forces Central (AFCENT), the top Air Force command in the Middle East, released pictures of a pair of F-16Cs refueling somewhere over the Red Sea with what appeared to be air-to-air focused loadouts. One of the jets was armed with two AIM-120s, two AIM-9Xs, and two older AIM-9Ms. The other had a pair of AIM-120s, one of each type of Sidewinder, and a seven-shot 70mm rocket pod. Both jets also carried LITENING targeting pods and High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile Targeting System (HTS) pods.
In an air-to-air engagement, the laser designator in the LITENING pod could be used to ‘laze’ or designate the target. LITENING’s sensor turret can be slaved to the radar on the aircraft carrying it, or vice versa. So-called buddy lasing, where one aircraft designates the target for another, could also be useful in this case, especially given the speed differential between typical Houthi drones and F-16s. One jet could keep the target steadily lazed while the other makes its attack run.
APKWS IIs are usable against drones, as well as subsonic cruise missiles, in the first place because those are relatively steady, non-reactionary, low-performance targets. The rockets are not dogfighting weapons.
In the past two weeks, AFCENT has released two more sets of pictures showing F-16Cs with the same pair of weapons loadouts, as seen below.
A similar loadout including a single seven-shot 70mm rocket pod has now also been observed on Air Force F-16Cs and Ds based in Japan, which points to this being an Air Force-wide standard option now.
It is not surprising that APKWS II has been used in the air-to-air role in the course of the ongoing crisis in and around the Red Sea, either. The capability is perfectly suited to the situation and, as has been noted, gives pilots a lower-cost option over existing air-to-air missiles for engaging targets like drones. The laser-guided rockets also offer valuable magazine depth, with just a single pod holding multiple engagement opportunities while taking up just one pylon. For the F-16, a seven-shot pod is loaded with APKWS II rockets more than the number of air-to-air munitions the jet can carry. Separate U.S. operations in the defense of Israel last year underscored the importance of greater magazine depth in the face of mass drone and missile attacks, with jets having to land to reload while threats were still passing overhead. The crew of at least one F-15E Strike Eagle switched to guns after running out of missiles, but did not succeed in downing any targets.
The recent crises across the Middle East have provided the U.S. military with a host of important lessons learned, in general. They have also highlighted concerns about weapon expenditure rates and stockpile adequacy, issues that would only be more pronounced in a high-end fight, such as one in the Pacific against China. In addition, various tiers of drones have already become a fixture on modern battlefields, as well as an increasing threat to military assets and critical infrastructure outside of traditional conflict areas, something TWZ has been calling attention to for years now. Drone technology, along with swarming capabilities, supported by advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, is only set to continue improving and proliferating, even among non-state actors like the Houthis. This, in turn, can only put additional emphasis on more economical options, like APKWS II, to help defeat large numbers of hostile uncrewed aerial systems.
There is also the clear possibility for the future employment of APKWS IIs in the air-to-air role on platforms beyond the F-16, if this hasn’t already happened. To date, the laser-guided rockets have been integrated onto U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier jump jets and F/A-18C/D Hornet fighters, as well as Air Force A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft. U.S. Marine AH-1Z Viper and UH-1Y Venom, Navy MH-60R/S Seahawk, and Army AH-64 Apaches can all fire APKWS II, as well.
If nothing else, APKWS II rockets are now officially a combat-proven air-to-air option for Air Force F-16s.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com