The US has announced plans to ship 3,350 air-launched Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) missiles to Ukraine in yet another escalation amid a war the current Trump administration vowed during the 2024 US presidential campaign to end in “24 hours.”

The ERAM (not to be confused with the anti-air RIM-174 Standard Extended Range Active Missile also referred to as ERAM or SM-6) is essentially a turbine engine-powered glide bomb. A likely candidate for the arm’s program is the Boeing PJAM  which literally stands for “powered joint direct attack munition.” The ERAM is similar to glide bombs the US has already shipped to Ukraine in large quantities but with a longer range, expected to reach between 240–450 kilometers according to The War Zone (TWZ).

The powered glide bomb would be used to strike much further behind Russian lines than previous Western weapons have allowed including HIMARS, ATACMS, various air-launched cruise missiles, and the standard glide bombs the ERAM is likely based on, but with limitations.

Hype Versus Reality 

Reporting on the ERAM’s delivery to Ukraine has been particularly ambiguous amid flagging fortunes for Ukraine’s US-sponsored (and directed) armed forces on the battlefield and chronic weapons shortages owed to the collective West’s inadequate military industrial base.

Headlines claiming 3,350 missiles are on their way to Ukraine belie the likely details of the arms program with production only having just started and the first 1,000 missiles likely to reach Ukraine over the course of 2 years, and the rest over a period of up to 3 years or longer.

Even if 3,350 missiles were available today to send Ukraine, the fact that these are air-launched missiles means the most significant bottleneck for use on the battlefield will be combat aircraft and pilots available to deliver the weapons on target.

Limitations regarding Ukrainian airpower have prevented other air-launched and air-dropped munitions from reaching their full potential on the battlefield including Storm Shadow and SCALP air-launched cruise missiles (with ranges of up to 250 km) as well as the aforementioned US-made JDAM glide bombs and even French-made AASM Hammer glide bombs which are powered with a solid rocket motor but fall far short of the ERAM’s longer range of 240-450 km at only 70 km.

Ukrainian airpower, beyond issues of quantity, also face significant challenges from active Russian measures to defend against their use including........

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