House lawmakers are considering whether the Navy should plan on buying 96 additional Tomahawk cruise missiles, nearly doubling the 100 the Navy requested in its fiscal 2015 budget proposal.
The possibility of adding more Tomahawks to the Navy’s requested was proposed in language released Tuesday by the House Armed Services Committee’s seapower panel that will be under consideration Wednesday for potential inclusion in the authorization bill for fiscal year 2015.
The Navy in outlining its proposal in March said it would buy only 100 more of the Tomahawks, which are launched from destroyers, cruisers and submarines, after this year and cease production of the
Raytheon [RTN]-made missiles in favor of moving to a next generation land attack cruise missile.
That move raised questions within Congress on whether the Navy can sustain the required number of the missiles in its inventory and whether the service could move quickly enough to develop and produce a new missile–a time period usually assessed at about 10 years.
The Navy has about 4,000 of the Tomahawks long considered to be a cornerstone of the military’s firepower. They cost about $1.2 million-$1.5 million each, with the more expensive version for submarines.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told Senate lawmakers in March that the service would move “expeditiously” to get a new land attack sea-based missile, after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whose home state produces the Tomahawks, said the Navy was “rolling the dice” in assuming it could have the new missile in time.