Tomahawk may get ship-killer role

[TopTorp '92]

Taken from Enric Volante, “Tomahawk may get ship-killer role.“ (http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/300581)

Raytheon Missile Systems wants to turn its land-attack Tomahawk missile into a ship killer that can do something never done before: Hit a cruising warship from a thousand miles away.

Also, “Everett Tackett, business-development manager of the Tomahawk at Missile Systems, said the technology plan has four goals.” Among them include: Improve the warhead to penetrate a big warship

Seems to me there is a tradeoff here. How can you get a bigger punch at greater distance? Lighter explosives? Lighter fuel? Lighter weapon overall?

[Raptor1]

Err...isn't there already a Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile?

I guess the TASM doesn't have the range of a thousand miles though...

[CastleBravo]

Well, Tanks already have HEAT shape charged shells. It's probably not too difficult to incorporate that to a cruise missle. Also isn't a 500 lb payload standard on TLAMs?

[SUBMAN1]

Exactly. This is turning the TLAM back into its original design with just longer range.

-S

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

So, they are bringing TASM back, except with a more compact seeker unit than was possible in the 80s so the range doesn't get shortened as much? Or are they going to "eat" part of the warhead to ensure the appropriate range?

"Improve" the warhead? Does that mean making it actually better overall, or just more efficient (there's a difference b/w the two).

[TopTorp '92]

How do we get bigger bang with greater range? What does it take to punch a hole into the side of a ship?

Also depends on desired result. Do we want to punch a hole in the target or use the missile to damage communications masts & antennas? When I was in the Navy we just wanted to damage his comm's and then move in with torpedos.

[CastleBravo]

"Improve" the warhead? Does that mean making it actually better overall, or just more efficient (there's a difference b/w the two).

You lost me here. What is the difference between making it better over all and just more efficient?

[Letum]

Aren't they a little slow for this role today?

Am I right in thinking that modern anti-missile systems can deal with much
faster, smaller objects than T-hawks?

[CastleBravo]

Am I right in thinking that modern anti-missile systems can deal with much
faster, smaller objects than T-hawks?

CIWS puts a rain of lead in the air. I'm not sure it would stop a TLAM armed appropriately.


We have all been dancing around it, but a nuclear weapon of approriate yield would kill any ship.

[Letum]

I was thinking more of missile systems than CIWS, but I don't see why
CIWS wouldn't work as well.

[Max2147]

The TASM really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Anything that's too big or too well-defended for a Harpoon will have no trouble shooting down an incoming TASM.

The US is really behind the curve when it comes to anti-ship missiles, although we also have less need for them (since we own most of the big ships out there).

[TopTorp '92]

Aren't they a little slow for this role today?

Am I right in thinking that modern anti-missile systems can deal with much
faster, smaller objects than T-hawks?

Harpoon is definitely faster but can't get the 1000nm range. TASM was alot like Harpoon but couldn't execute waypoints, & change altitude and speed at each waypoint. Neither has the 1000nm range called for in the above article.

The article fails to mention the kind of platform the weapon would be launched from. Fired from submarine? Article silent on that issue.

So how do we make a longer-lasting TASM with a bigger punch?

Are there lighter explosives with more power than currently in service?

Logistics aside, what kind of firepower does it take to punch a hole in the side of a armored warship? How do they do it already with tanks?

Mmm . . . TASM may be getting a major face-lift.

[Letum]

armored warship?


Are there really still ships out there that could be called "Armored warships".
I thought the age of concrete vests was over.

[bookworm_020]

To me it seems like they are recycling an old idea again!:shifty:

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

You lost me here. What is the difference between making it better over all and just more efficient?

A simple example. The old warhead is 1000 pounds of TNT. You change it to 1000 pounds of PBXN-whatever, which is a more powerful explosive. All else being equal, the new warhead would be "better overall" (in terms of "bang").

Second case: The old warhead is 1000 pounds of TNT. Because that's too much for the required range, they shafted it to 500 pounds of PBXN-whatever. PBXN (for today's purpose) is about 1.8 times more powerful than TNT, so it is worth about 900 pounds of TNT. In this case the warhead is more efficient but is not "better (more powerful)" overall.

[TLAM Strike]

Seems to me that a FA-35 armed with a pair of 500 LGBs making an attack run at supersonic speed would stand a better chance of scoring a hit. Subsonic ASMs when out of style with the Exocet.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

For one thing, if this "TASM-II" got the range it promises, it'll outrange the F-35 by a mile.

[Max2147]

Seems to me that a FA-35 armed with a pair of 500 LGBs making an attack run at supersonic speed would stand a better chance of scoring a hit. Subsonic ASMs when out of style with the Exocet.
If all you're going for is a hit, then yes. But if a TASM gets shot down, you just lose a missile that was going to be destroyed anyway if it hit the target. If an F-35 gets shot down you lose a very expensive plane that you wanted to use again, plus your pilot is either killed or captured (since he was shot down right next to an enemy ship).

[Sea Demon]

Seems to me that a FA-35 armed with a pair of 500 LGBs making an attack run at supersonic speed would stand a better chance of scoring a hit. Subsonic ASMs when out of style with the Exocet.

I like the method of air attack. But I still think Tomahawk suited in this role might be very useful. Tomahawk as a weapons system has come a long way since the old TASM. Tomahawk now has a lower cross section against radars using shaping and coatings, has datalinks, forward recon capabilities, and reattack options, lower IR signature and better sensors. While I think a number would have to be fired for saturation against surface targets, I don't think these would be as easy to down as TASM's in DW and SC. I'm glad they are pursuing this as an option for the Navy.

[CaptainHaplo]

What they need to do is use the Tomahawk as a torpedo delivery system.

Every ship in the water has an acoustic signature. Program specific targets into the torp, launch the Tomahawk carrier - let it fly out however many thousands of miles, detect and close with the target - then about a mile and a half out, drop the torp, climb and have all the attention. Sure it could have some terminal homing, but it would be a decoy - all the while the real threat would be approaching slowly, silently, and far more deadly.

The torp could approach initially at slow speed, saving fuel, then when sonar sftw processing indicated the proper target within range, kick in and go hard. Boom - death under the waves, harder to stop, harder to avoid, and harder to survive.

Most medium warships are expected to survive 2 missile hits. Large warships - 3 or more. Carriers are perhaps the exception. Navies have spent untold money on anti-missile systems.

Anti-torp systems are still in their infancy compared to anti-missile systems.

And with a torp, you could do a nuke, arm it at a certain time = so that even if your torp were successfully countered, it would be close enough to still do alot of damage to your enemy. Hard to have that same ability with a airborne missile....

Edit* With the waypoint system, you could actually use a tomahawk strike to seed an area with captor mines or torps in standby - waiting for your opponent to come close and go boom... they survive the "missile" strike - only to blunder into a relentless torp attack from nowhere.....

[Max2147]

What they need to do is use the Tomahawk as a torpedo delivery system.

Every ship in the water has an acoustic signature. Program specific targets into the torp, launch the Tomahawk carrier - let it fly out however many thousands of miles, detect and close with the target - then about a mile and a half out, drop the torp, climb and have all the attention. Sure it could have some terminal homing, but it would be a decoy - all the while the real threat would be approaching slowly, silently, and far more deadly.

The torp could approach initially at slow speed, saving fuel, then when sonar sftw processing indicated the proper target within range, kick in and go hard. Boom - death under the waves, harder to stop, harder to avoid, and harder to survive.

Most medium warships are expected to survive 2 missile hits. Large warships - 3 or more. Carriers are perhaps the exception. Navies have spent untold money on anti-missile systems.

Anti-torp systems are still in their infancy compared to anti-missile systems.

And with a torp, you could do a nuke, arm it at a certain time = so that even if your torp were successfully countered, it would be close enough to still do alot of damage to your enemy. Hard to have that same ability with a airborne missile....

Edit* With the waypoint system, you could actually use a tomahawk strike to seed an area with captor mines or torps in standby - waiting for your opponent to come close and go boom... they survive the "missile" strike - only to blunder into a relentless torp attack from nowhere.....
The big problem there is weight.

Small air-launched torpedoes like the Mk 46 work well against submarines, since you don't need a huge bang to sink them. Surface ships are different. A Mk 46-sized torpedo wouldn't do a whole lot of damage to a big enemy ship. It could give a smaller ship some trouble, but if it's small it's probably not that well defended, so you could just take it out with a Harpoon.

To really seriously damage a big enemy ship you need a big torpedo like the Mk 48, but that weighs more than the entire Tomahawk missile.

The other issue is range. Lightweight torpedoes generally don't have very long range, so the missile would have to be well within the enemy ship's SAM range before it launched.