The government has said it is withholding the delivery date for the Small Diameter Bomb II, procured as an interim standoff capability for the F-35 Lightning fleet, on the grounds that releasing the information would harm the capability, effectiveness and security of the armed forces.

Minister of State for Defence Luke Pollard provided the response to a written question from Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative MP for Huntingdon, tabled on 26 May. Obese-Jecty asked by what date the interim standoff capability would be available via the SDB-II procurement.

Pollard said he was withholding the date as it “would harm the capability, effectiveness, and security of the Armed Forces,” but confirmed that “the procurement has been prioritised through the Foreign Military Sales process, and the acquisition of this weapon will provide an interim stand-off capability for the F-35 Lightning fleet prior to the introduction of SPEAR 3.”

As the UK Defence Journal previously reported, the SDB-II procurement follows a prolonged period in which the F-35 fleet lacked an effective standoff air-to-surface weapon. A National Audit Office report in July 2025 stated plainly that the UK had not yet purchased an effective standoff air-to-surface weapon for the fleet, noting that funding for Small Diameter Bombs had been requested but not provided.

That position changed following a letter from MoD Permanent Secretary Jeremy Pocklington to the Public Accounts Committee in April 2026, confirming that approvals had been given to proceed with the Foreign Military Sales procurement.

The SDB-II is a glide weapon developed by RTX capable of engaging moving targets in all weather conditions at ranges significantly beyond those of the Paveway IV guided bomb currently carried by UK F-35Bs.

It is already integrated on the F-35B and has been used operationally by US Marine Corps aircraft, meaning the UK procurement does not require new integration work. SPEAR-3, the intended long-term precision standoff weapon for the F-35, has been repeatedly delayed and is not now expected to enter service until the early 2030s.

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79 COMMENTS

  1. Surely It’s just a lever that connects to a release mechanism via a cable allowing it to Plop Off. ?

    🤔

    • Isnt it the delivery rather than the integration that is being withheld. I assume because it won’t be any time soon.

      • As the weapon is already integrated into our F35B and the USMC has a store of them then effectively the weapon is available to us today in most war time scenarios as we frequently use US stores in combat operations.

        So what’s the point of tipping off a potential adversary with a UK weapon delivery schedule for a weapon that won’t need an IOC or FOC.

        We do exactly the same with AMRAAM purchases, the UK never announces when or how many it’s buying they are lumped together with US and other nation orders.

        • Not sure I would rely on access to US stocks anymore.

          However if that was the case then no reason to hide the date, they could have just said we are aiming for X for UK delivery, in the meantime we have an agreement with the US for access to the missiles if needed.

          • Plus the pilots would need training on using them, which would require some missiles for training purposes.

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      • I Interpret article headlines for the alternate meaning at times ! Basically, To deliver a bomb….

        It’s difficult, I know.

    • No in an F-35 you have to go through about 20 levels of menu items… reboot… and try again. If that doesn’t work it’s out on the wing with an extended claw hammer hoping the auto pilot doesn’t release yah tether. 5th Gen is no easy matter to update doncha know.

      • Crawling out on the wing is 4th Gen. For 5th Gen, you have to pull the seat-back off and climb through into the weapon bay… Be careful of kicking the controls while you’re rummaging around behind the seat, though.

      • What’s on the Menu ? I’m guessing Prawn Cocktail for starters, 10oz Rump for mains and a nice Sticky Toffee pudding for desert ?

      • SDB 2 uses the existing JDAM interface, so not sure what you’re talking about. Launching a JDAM is pretty simple. You can see examples of what the switchology looks like by watching youtube videos of the DCS flight-sim.

    • It far more complicated: It’s the thing
      That drills the hole, that holes the ring
      That drives the rod, that turns the knob
      That works the thingummybob.

    • With what is going on around farage and the true source of the millions he received, I can’t help thinking HMG has probably been brought off decades ago by our enemies. It seems highly unlikely he or their Welsh leader who is now in prison, were the only ones taking money. There was also Boris putting a kgb spy into the lords, etc etc.

      The conservatives under May blocked an investigation by the security services into Russian interference in our elections, and it’s not like labour has started one. I really think it’s time for a proper investigation and weed out the assets. It just feels like all parties have a vested interest in not doing so.

    • Where’s Halfwit? Trump that!

      I feel sad that the US MAGA govt have gone into an isolationist mindset and are doing themselves harm on the world stage and letting China and their pals strep in. Africa comes to mind and the withdrawl from aid plans there and elsewhere
      They are right on some things though Europe needed to spend more on defence and the fracking revolution and results in the Permian basin now are truly astonishing

      • There was no real aid going to Africa, though. USAID is an acronym. USAID has always been a co-agency with the CIA. USAID was intended to basically spread bribe money around on the CIAs behalf. It’s actually a good thing that nest of vipers was shut down, as they were actively working against politicians in western countries.

        • I never Vote, can’t see the point, It’s like choosing the least worst Liar.

          I also refuse to worship the Elite or our so called Leaders, nor any God or Religion.

          It’s all Bollox designed to control the Sheeple and all their wealth.

          There. 😁

  6. Good interim purchase for a weapon that will still remain useful even once SPEAR 3 is delivered. This weapon represents a real game changer in the RAF’s SEAD capabilities and with Russias diminished inventory even just our small force or 48 F35’s could make a sizeable dent in Russias ability to keep out other European Air Force’s from any conflict.

    Having such a SEAD force with the ability to deploy from a carrier or improvised runway in Scandinavia is a major strategic threat to Moscow and it removes its key tactic of airbase saturation to prevent air interdiction by NATO.

    As we have seen in the Gulf even with the best air and missile defences available, large airbases with in hundreds of miles of the conflict are close to useless now. The US heavily relied on its carriers in the conflict and Iran was completely unable to interfere with US navy operations off the coast in green or blue water.

    The carriers ability to move presents the best form of defence against low cost saturation attacks and a Queen Elizabeth class with 24 F35B’s onboard represent one of the most powerful naval air wings on the planet today.

    Definitely something to give Mad Vlad second thoughts about. Anti ship ballistic missiles appear to be an over blown threat at this stage. Warships can easily target them and kill chains over thousands of miles appear difficult to generate. Hypersonic’s may be over stated as the laws of physics appear to make it near on impossible for an object traveling beyond Mach five to have much if any control or sensor lock on due to plasma effects and high altitude super sonic weapons appear now to be easy to target.

    Hopefully we see renewed commitment to fully realise an F35 force of 138 jets in the DIP on Monday.

    • Hi Jim.
      Agree with that overall. The rudimentary runway thing though, don’t think we’ve tried that with a Lightning yet.
      Seems rather more complex than a GR3 in a barn in a forest in Germany.

      • Hi Daniele, they operated from roads in Finland in 2024 but not quite the small FOB’s the GR3 use to use back in the Cold War days. With the drone saturation threat I think the main thing is to be able to operate over a wide area as opposed to being hidden from aerial view unlike the Cold War where being hidden was everything.

            • Ta. The Nordics are rather more adapt at that I feel with their defence dispersal planning.
              The RAF I read has tried, and talks about it. The bare base exercises we saw operated from established airfields like St Mawgan.
              Will be impressive to see.

                • They do. Though most have not been used for decades and I don’t believe the RAF has the staff to make use of them with a wide dispersal of the Squadrons beyond an exercise for PR purposes.
                  In use:
                  Lossi. 2 sites.
                  Marham. 2 sites, 1 next for refurbing.
                  Coningsby. 2 sites.
                  Lakenheath: Not ours.

                  Not in regular use:
                  Boscombe. QRA capable.

                  Not in use:
                  Woodbridge. ( Rock Barracks.)
                  Bentwaters. ( industrial estate )
                  Upper Heyford. ( Industrial estate)
                  St Mawgan.
                  Leeming. 2 sites.
                  Leuchars. 2 sites.
                  Honington. 2 sites.
                  Wattisham. 2 sites, part of 1 reused.
                  Of those Leeming, Leuchars, and St Mawgan still have active runways. Unsure if Wattisham or Woodbridge runways are open to fixed wing traffic.
                  HAS were also bombed out by LGB in the Gulf war, so not totally proof though better than lined up in rows like the bigger aircraft of the RAF which cannot use them.

                    • I’m not so sure. Lining up on known airfields like skittles is even more nonsense.
                      I remember the RAF using the A1 near Peterborough.

      • Take off and landing on UK public roads would require at least 5 million cones, 100 empty lorries, two miles of H&S site safety Rules, 6000 Portaloo’s and One sleepy shovel leaning Worker In Hi-Vis and Hard Hat.
        The aim would be to fill all Pot Holes by the mid 2030’s when the fines from the average speed camera’s have reached sufficient levels to afford a bucket of Tarmac.

        Moving at pace !

    • @Jim
      This is the biggest load of pure shite that I’ve seen on this blog for months. Almost every statement can be challenged for accuracy and/or relevance.

      Did’nt you know that the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) carrier strike group was withdrawn from the Middle East/Gulf region in March 2026 after a massive fire broke out in the ship’s main laundry and auxiliary galley spaces following a reported direct hit? Over 200 of the crew required medical attention. I could go on

      • Not sure where you get your reports from David, probably off the back of a public toilet door given the content you share but the fire on Ford was caused by a laundry fire.

        The laundry is deep in the ship so I would love to know how you think a direct hit caused it.

        Please do enlighten us

  7. Surely they’d be proud to say we’ve got deep stocks of bombs and they’re delivering soon, right… Right???

  8. We haven’t placed the order yet as the procurement was only approved a month ago on the UK side, so there won’t be a delivery timeline yet.

    It still has to go through the US FMS process, with the LOA (Letter of Offer and Acceptance) negotiated and signed before anything is locked in. Only after that are production slots and delivery dates set.

      • So a more accurate reply from Pollard would have been:

        ‘Chill fella! We only decided last month that we intend to buy SDB-II.’

        But I suppose the wording of his answer makes it look like we are further along in the process.

        Hu Nbelievable, pal!

  9. Reports on SM that the DIP won’t now be our next Monday.
    Talk of bad news in it influencing the by election.
    Who’d have thought it!
    I wonder how long it’ll be before NATO leaders start to criticise Starmer directly?

    • With the Russian drone hitting Romania one would hope it would be very soon, if not today! Time to put up (again).

  10. There’s something I don’t understand. Somehow, the west managed to engineer a way for ancient MiG-29s that we have no source-code for to talk to JDAMs and even HARMs through an adapter pylon. If SPEAR-3 is considered such a critical capability, why has the British government not investigated putting adapter-logic in the pylon that holds the SPEAR-3s inside the F-35B’s weapon bay? It’s a kludge, but then all you need is safety-of-flight and safety-of-release, and you’re in business.

    In other words, if the UK government wants to solve this, it can be solved, whether Lockheed’s involved or not.

    • Cos that would be a breach of contract, Lockheed can impose penalties and restrict services and parts to the UK. And that’s before the US Diplomatic reaction makes their reply much more serious.

      But the reality is more down to the MOD’s history of aircraft modifications ending in failure and them dodging responsibility for cost cutting.

      • How would that be a breech of contract? Especially in the condition that Lockheed is late on the integration that the UK paid for. If anything, that becomes an item of negotiation.

        I think that your second answer is closer to the mark.

          • They own the interior source-code for the plane. They don’t own the external interface. That has to be open to everybody so they can integrate their stuff. E.g. you could make your adapter pylon spoof the system by calling itself a JDAM and just program the SPEAR-3 that way. All any weapon really needs is a location that it’s supposed to go to and some idea of what to do when it gets there. There are a LOT of ways to skin that cat. Just because the UK doesn’t want to bother doing it some other way than have Lockheed integrate the weapon doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

            • Oh for god sake you have no idea what you are talking about. How the hell do you think information from the navigation systems, EW systems, ir sensors, and radar systems get to the weapons in a way that they can understand. Each weapon has data format that is different. You need software that is written to SIL 4 and can do the translation in near real time, usually less than 1ms. The weapons usually have an a lightweight RTOS that are specific to that weapon.

              • I’m an industry person. I can’t/won’t say where I work or on what. I absolutely know what I’m talking about. It CAN be done. If you want to integrate something, even if a limited set of capability, you can do it. You just have to want to do it.

    • The Harm and jdam wasn’t integrated into the Mig 29. A jury rigged system involving blue tooth allowed a cockpit mounted tablet to give the information needed by the weapon. However they lacked the full capability of the weapons and could only be fired at pre programmed tragets inputted on the ground. Yet again for the benefit of the permanently outraged, Lockheed is the design authority. Any changes without Lockheed’s permission will invalidate the air safety qualifications and be a breach of copyright. Lockheed can take the government to court and walk away with 10s of millions of taxpayers money.

      • And yet again, if Lockheed is ‘behind’ on the integration as is constantly being stated, the UK government can use that ‘behind’ status as a bargaining chip to secure permission to do their own alternative version.

        It’s funny that people want to talk about out-of-the-box thinking and ‘faster, better, cheaper’, but never want to actually talk about really doing it.

        • You an armchair expert being OUTRAGED without the slightest idea what you are talking about. Intellectual property rights and air safety laws don’t dispear because you find them inconvenient

          • Not an armchair expert. An actual expert. I do this kind of thing for a living. I’m not outraged because I have no dog in the fight. It’s just funny to me that every time this weapon comes up, there’s a lot of pig-squealing about it in these pages.

            • Everything I’ve read about the F-35 software ecosystem implies it’s a modern SaaS system designed with vendor lock-in in mind. The F-35 is a plane as a service with the associated subscription fee to keep it flying. I don’t doubt we could speed things up by paying LM lots of money (several billion, iirc) for the public api, suitable licensed api keys and access to an environment to test out our api code. We’d still have to wait for them to validate the code and approve it as an update package that can be uploaded to the plane through the logistics system since I don’t doubt they only allow updates through their approved devices.

    • The weapon had to be integrated into the combat system so it can be targeted in flight and only LM can do it. They are awaiting software updates to be finished.

      • I know there are specific ‘cool things’ that the UK wants to do with SPEAR-3, including in-flight targeting like that. What I’m suggesting is the limited integration of a smaller subset of features just to get the weapon in inventory while Lockmart fools around with TR-3. A limited capability that can be used in the interim is better than an always-down-the-road capability with the full feature set.

  12. Once again we are talking about delays and shortages within our military. The original plan to purchase 150 F35B’s quickly changed to 138. Like most military announcements reality becomes far different than planned announcements. Britain currently have 47 remaining of the 48 ordered. A couple of those aircraft are in the USA for training/testing. Two more have been stuck in the Azores due to unserviceability issues during their pre delivery flight from the USA to Britain. Six are currently said to be at RAF Akrotiri defending Cyprus whilst 24 were said to have been embarked on one of our CV’s. Lack of spares resulted in there only being 12 service packs available for the 24 aircraft embarked. Factor in both unscheduled and routine maintenance throughout the entire 47 aircraft and you are left with insufficient numbers to carry out the tasks. This is an ever growing problem across Britain’s military caused by Political decisions. For decades Britain has sacrificed defence spending for social welfare both home and abroad to the point that Britain is now unable to safeguard it’s borders.

    • These Programmes are obviously commitment and Funding driven,the Initial Requrements are always subject to change.In modern times Tornado had 385 delivered to the RAF,the Initial Requirement was said to be much more.Typhoon 250,then 232 but 160 delivered.F35B 138 with as you say 48 delivered so far ( the 2 Azores Tourists are home now ).Whatever number of GCAP/Tempest is quoted nothing will change,the number delivered will be significantly lower.

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