Most US Air Force aircraft will be able to carry (using the BRU-61/A rack[16]) a pack of four SDBs in place of a single 2,000-pound (910 kg) Mark 84 bomb.

In November 2014, the U.S. Air Force began the development of a version of the SDB I intended to track and attack sources of electronic warfare jamming directed to disrupt the munitions' guidance.

The home-on-GPS jam (HOG-J) seeker works similar to the AGM-88 HARM to follow the source of a radio-frequency jammer to destroy it.

[26] In January 2016, Orbital ATK revealed that the Alternative Warhead (AW), designed for the M270's GMLRS to achieve area effects without leaving behind unexploded ordnance, had been successfully tested on the SDB.

[28][29] In May 2009, Raytheon announced that it had completed its first test flight of the GBU-53/B Small Diameter Bomb II, which has a data link and a tri-mode seeker built with technology developed for the Precision Attack Missile.

Boeing and the Italian firm Oto Melara signed a contract covering the license production of 500 GBU-39/B (INS/GPS) and 50 BRU-61/A racks for the Aeronautica Militare, at a cost of nearly US$34 million.

Previously Ukraine had operated the GLSDB ground-launched version of the Small Diameter Bomb, which was regarded "ineffective" due to Russian jamming.

[47] This small size, combined with being air-launched, means that the SDB might hit a target before Russian electronic warfare can jam the weapon.

Under the contract Boeing was to provide engineering, integration test, and production support, plus the development of an LSDB Weapon Simulator.

However, Boeing admitted to a capability gap in the ability to engage targets in zero-visibility weather, lacking the millimeter wave radar of the GBU-53/B SDB II.

[55] According to CNN, Israel also used a GBU-39/B SDB in a strike at the gate of the Al-Mutanabbi school complex near Khan Younis in Southern Gaza, which was being used to house displaced people.