Glide bombs, which first saw use during the second world war in the form of the German Fritz-X and the Henschel Hs-293, have come a long way. In the era of cruise missiles and other expensive long range weapons, the glide bomb is making a re-entry as a prominent weapon in the arsenal of air forces across the world.The United States Navy has released an image of an old Mark-80 series bomb attached to a new guidance kit attached to a new Range Extension Kit (REK) that gives the bomb a phenomenal range of 200 nautical miles or 370 km, this is more than the range of the original Brahmos, which stood at 290 km due to the Missile Technology Control Regime. 370 km is the aerial distance between Delhi and Jhansi. The Americans have named the new weapon the Guided Bomb Unit (GBU)-75, it is also called Joint Direct Attack Munition-Long Range (JDAM-LR). The Americans have added a small turbine engine to the REK to give this new system its extraordinary range.Glide bombs has been used extensively in ongoing conflicts in West Asia and has been very prominently used by Russia against Ukraine. The vast majority of glide bombs are made by converting dumb bombs to the new standard by attaching them with a guidance kit and an apparatus to increase their glide ratio, or the distance to forward flight for drop in altitude, these kits are known as Range Extension Kits.The amin advantage of these weapons is that they give the pilot of the aircraft a safe stand-off range from where he can release the weapons, without entering the range of the adversary's air defence systems. Once released the bombs fly at relatively high sub-sonic speeds as they fly towards their target, making them very difficult to intercept.Another advantage of using these systems is that these guided bombs are not as expensive as missiles as they don't have the complex engines of missiles. More, air forces across the world have a large number of, relatively cheap, dumb bombs in their inventory. The kit imparts the bomb with both accuracy and range.India too is developing its own series of these bombs. The most impressive of these projects is the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) developed Smart Anti-Airfield Weapon (SAAW). This weapon has a range of up to a 100 km, although there are plans to make a variant with a small turbojet engine that will give this platform a 200 km range, as reported by Mint. The DRDO is also developing the Gautham glide bomb in two variants of the 500 kg and 1,000 kg variants with a range of 100 km. Private firm JSR Dynamics too is making a glide bomb with a range of up to 120 km.