As part of a look at the entire nuclear weapons portfolio, U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) is considering requirements for accelerating and increasing the buy of the U.S. Air Force AGM-181 Long Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO) by RTX [RTX] beyond the 1,087 nuclear-tipped cruise missile LRSOs planned, STRATCOM head Gen. Anthony Cotton told the Nuclear Deterrence Summit in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 2.
Asked whether the command was examining those options, given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s posturing about using low-yield nuclear weapons after his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Cotton replied, “Yes. We’re thinking about all…when it comes to LRSO.”
“I’m really excited on where we are with LRSO,” he said. “We’re having an overall conversation in regards to studying what sizing and posture is in regards to my portfolio anyway so it obviously would include the new systems that are being delivered by the service components.”
DoD has said that it plans a LRSO Milestone C production decision in 2027. The total acquisition cost estimate has been $16.2 billion.
The Air Force held a LRSO Critical Design Review last Feb. 27-March 2 at Eglin AFB, Fla. (Defense Daily, March 13, 2023).
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is to provide the W80-4 warhead for LRSO. Air Force bombers, including the future Northrop Grumman [NOC] B-21 Raider, are to carry LRSO, which is to replace the Boeing [BA] AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile, which has a W80-1 warhead that Air Force officials said can come in a lower-yield configuration.
Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories have been moving toward nuclear safety certification of the W80-4 and validation of the computational models of the warhead’s performance (Defense Daily, June 12, 2023).
On the future, land-based leg of the triad, the Northrop Grumman [NOC] LGM-35A Sentinel, Air Force has informed Congress of a 37 percent unit cost Nunn-McCurdy program breach–an increase in unit cost per missile from $118 million in 2020 to $162 million due to unpredicted military construction costs in what will be a massive civil works project to build Sentinel silos and ensure roads are able to accommodate missile transportation (Defense Daily, Jan. 24). The total program cost is now more than $125 billion compared to more than $95 billion earlier.
Asked on Feb. 2 why he thought industry had not predicted such military construction costs for Sentinel and how to prevent such oversights in the future, Cotton replied, “I don’t know. I wish I knew the answer to that because, not only when it comes to Sentinel, but when it comes to all the modernization within my purview, all of that has to be taken into consideration.”
“That’s not just limited to the replacement of the ICBM,” he said. “That’s gonna be true when it comes to understanding MILCON across the portfolio. We’re gonna have to wise up to ensure that we understand what that means for all the legs of the triad and, to be frank, all modernization across the Department [of Defense] that really touches on MILCON and how you move that forward.”