By Geoff Fein
The Navy’s Tomahawk cruise missile program has been working on a new effort to enable forward -deployed special operations forces to provide coordinates for the missiles for use against time-sensitive and critical targets, a Navy official said.
Additionally, PMA-280, the Tomahawk Weapons System Program, is pursuing a joint capabilities technology demonstration (JCTD) for a multiple effects warhead concept.
Tomahawk program officials have also been focusing a lot of attention over the past 18 months on the torpedo tube launched program and have achieved a number of successful test launches over the past year, Capt. Rick McQueen, program manager, Tomahawk Weapons System Program, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
In March, PMA-280 achieved the first Navy torpedo tube launch (TTL) in the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Hawaii, followed by the first successful United Kingdom test shot in the Gulf of Mexico in June.
“So the TTL program has come a significant way,” he said.
Raytheon [RTN] builds the Tomahawk cruise missile.
PMA-280 also conducted the first Tomahawk launches from an SSGN earlier this year. Four USS Ohio-class guided missile submarines will be capable of firing 105 Tomahawk missiles each, as well as deploying special operations forces. The Navy had to reconfgure the vertical launch tubes (VLS), previously configured for ballistics missiles, on the four submarines. Now, 15 of each submarine’s VLS tubes will carry the Multiple All-Up-Round Canister (MAC). Each MAC will hold seven Tomahawk missiles.
“SSGN can take any of the Tomahawk configurations whether it is a Block III C unitary warhead, a Block III D which has the sub munition, or the Block IV, which…has the WDU-36 unitary warhead, the same one as Block III C,” Douglas Detwiler, principal deputy program manager, PMA-280, told Defense Daily during the same interview.
The Navy is still developing the concept of operations (CONOPS) for the Block IV, McQueen said.
“I don’t think the fleet is using it to its full capability yet, but we are seeing the CONOPS migrate to taking advantage of all the capability the Block IV brings to the table,” he said. “It is just now being delivered to the fleet.”
The Navy has delivered 900 Block IV Tomahawks to the fleet, McQueen said.
The U.K. will begin receiving its Block IVs in the next couple of months, Detwiler added.
“We have some concepts for a Block IV-plus kind of weapon, but we don’t have any endorsement or sponsor approval of that yet,” he added.
The closest to a new Tomahawk is the multiple effect warhead system (MEWS), Detwiler said. “We’ll see what comes out of that. Right now it is all demonstration. Certainly, our hope is that it will evolve into a useful capability for the warfighter.”
MEWS has two different elements on it which can be detonated either simultaneously or in sequence, Detwiler said.
“As part of that, we are looking at some thermobaric potential for that configuration as well,” he added.
“We are taking advantage of the unexpended fuel to create a greater blast-over-pressure, significantly greater than what the warhead has now,” McQueen added. “It looks like we have support across the Navy for this effort. The funding has to certainly follow from the Navy and OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense].”
While PMA-280 continues works on MEWS, Navy will begin using the redesigned Block IV.
Among the improvements the Block IV brings are a substantially reduced number of parts, navigation improvements, the ability through the Tomahawk Strike Network (TSN) to get up-to-the minute health and status of the missile, perform aim point updates and enable the missile to loiter, McQueen said. “It’s a UAV [unmanned air vehicle] with a one-way mission”
A data link capability onboard the Block IV will allow two-way communication between the missile and control station and enable operators to redirect the missile in flight, he said.
“We can get health and status messages back from the missile after it’s launched, so we can get an indication of where it is on its route, how it is feeling, if we have had a failure,” Detwiler said. “We can load alternate targets, we can reprogram it to any one of those. We can send it a brand new aim point while it is in flight.”
The Block IV can provide a battle damage indication image as well as take a picture as it flies over some point of interest and send that picture back to a control center over the TSN.
“We can also get and an indication of where the missile thinks it is going to strike before it actually hits a target as well,” Detwiler added.
Although the Tomahawk Block IV will have a loiter capability, it is all dependant on the range to target and fuel use. The Tomahawk has a range of approximately 1,000 miles, McQueen noted.
In August, the Navy conducted the first forward targeting test of a Tomahawk (Operational Test Launch 454), McQueen said.
A Tomahawk launched from the USS Halsey (DDG-97) was redirected in route after the fleet received new coordinates from a special operations force (SOF) on the ground.
Using a hand-held portable forward entry device (FPED), the SOF provided target coordinate updates, McQueen said. Those coordinate were sent back to 3rd Fleet, where the missile was redirected.
“That was the first time we have actually re-targeted a missile from the ground during an actual test flight,” McQueen said.
He added there will be similar tests planned to test this capability.
“We want to look at how we can become more effective in the global war on terror, and how we can bring smart technologies into play that are going to enable us to shorten our kill chain and pursue time-sensitive targets,” McQueen said. “We are looking at a number of things right now. One would be eventually migrating to being able to take out moving targets.”
Another possibility is using Tomahawk in anti-surface warfare, he added.
But in order to move toward a moving target capability, McQueen acknowledged it would require looking at some kind of seeker for the weapon.
“We have some initial concepts for that,” he said. “We feel a moving target capability could transition very nicely to a maritime interdiction role for the weapon.”
Fiscal year ’08 is the last year of the current multiyear contract with Raytheon. In FY ’09, the Navy and Raytheon will move toward an annual contract, McQueen said.
“There was some price instability across the supply base,” he said.
Under the current multiyear contract, each Tomahawk missile cost approximately $730,000, according to the Navy.
For example, the price of titanium made it difficult for Raytheon to lock in their supply base for a multiyear, McQueen noted.
The company has since got their suppliers together and called a supplier conference to assure them of a future for Tomahawk, McQueen said.
“I think they have been pretty successful about getting [suppliers] in the mode of a multiyear, and maybe executing a follow-on multi year in FY ’10,” he said. “We are looking at that as a possibility.”