I am actually not sure. before posting this comment I spent like 20 minutes reading the defense literature/media to get a more precise understanding of the technical details. The commentary is pretty vague but I think the difference between HARM/Anti-Ship is you fire-and-forget but before you fire, the missile does have a TARGET that the missile then is tracked onto while in this case you release the bomb to a general area and then it either identifies a target and locks on or it destroys itself in the air. I think that is somewhat different from previous smart weapons.
warning: this could be apocryphal since I can't find the documentation that made this distinction explicit but i remember reading about this a few weeks ago.
Hmm. My recollection was that the later Anti-Radiation Missile systems would do a form of target persistence to deal with "target radar switched off during flight" issues, but that wasn't a feature of the original models, such as the AGM-45 Shrike [0]. So with that, you might have a target in mind when you fired... But the target you hit would be the one that was radiating when the missile got close enough.
Automatic visual targeting is still something rather new, though.
> The weapon gives pilots the ability to destroy moving targets on the battlefield. Its seeker detects, classifies, tracks and destroys targets, even in adverse weather conditions from standoff ranges. "We call SDB II a game changer because the weapon doesn't just hit GPS coordinates; it finds and engages targets," said Mike Jarrett, Raytheon Air Warfare Systems vice president. "SDB II can eliminate a wider range of targets with fewer aircraft, reducing the pilot's time in harm's way."
I think it is pretty hard to parse just how autonomous these are.
> Once launched, the SDB-II relies on a sophisticated package of internal computing and algorithms that are designed to get the most out of its tri-mode sensors, and make the process of launch and targeting as simple and flexible as possible for the pilot. The GPS/INS system or datalink messages guide the bomb toward the target during the initial search phase, while the tri-mode seeker gathers initial data. A revisit phase combines information from all of its sensor modes to classify targets. That’s especially useful because the SDB-II can be told to prioritize certain types of targets, for example by distinguishing between tracked and wheeled vehicles, or by giving laser “painted” targets priority.
so some amount of classification/targeting. again I am unclear if the bomb can re-prioritize targets without confirmation from the pilot but it seems like technically very possible.
warning: this could be apocryphal since I can't find the documentation that made this distinction explicit but i remember reading about this a few weeks ago.