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Raytheon received a $349m contract for phase two of the Maritime Strike Tomahawk Rapid Deployment Capability to improve the Tomahawk cruise missile system in August 2019. Work will be executed in various locations across the US until February 2023. The Tomahawk Block IV uses GPS navigation and a satellite data-link to continue through a pre-set course. The LRSO entered development under the Obama administration, but the SLCM-N joined the future arsenal following the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review. A Navy analysis recommended developing the SLCM-N as a nuclear variant for the Next-Generation Land Attack Weapon (NGLAW), which is intended to replace the ship- and surface-launched Tomahawk. The Air Force has been looking for ways to arm its airlift planes with multiple weapons strapped to smart pallets, which could upload targeting information to the weapons.
Royal Navy
The Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System (TTWCS) integrated within the ship’s systems computes the path to engage targets. TTWCS is also used to communicate with multiple missiles for reassigning the targets and redirecting the missiles in flight. This was the first time the battle management system, using a beyond line-of-sight command-and-control node, received and uploaded new targeting data into such a separation test vehicle, the Air Force said.
Problematic development
The concept started as a long-range drone aircraft that would act as a decoy, distracting Soviet air defenses from the bombers. As new lightweight nuclear weapons emerged in the 1960s, the design was modified with the intent of attacking missile and radar sites at the end of its flight. The United States Air Force (USAF) deploys an air-launched cruise missile, the AGM-86 ALCM. The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is the exclusive delivery vehicle for the AGM-86 and AGM-129 ACM. Both missile types are configurable for either conventional or nuclear warheads.
Tomahawk at a Glance
The production cost of a V-1 was only a small fraction of that of a V-2 supersonic ballistic missile with a similar-sized warhead.[6] Unlike the V-2, the initial deployments of the V-1 required stationary launch ramps which were susceptible to bombardment. Bomber-launched variants of the V-1 saw limited operational service near the end of the war, with the pioneering V-1's design reverse-engineered by the Americans as the Republic-Ford JB-2 cruise missile. While ballistic missiles were the preferred weapons for land targets, heavy nuclear and conventional weapon tipped cruise missiles were seen by the USSR as a primary weapon to destroy United States naval carrier battle groups. The United States, Russia, North Korea, India, Iran, South Korea, Israel, France, China and Pakistan have developed several long-range subsonic cruise missiles. These missiles have a range of over 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) and fly at about 800 kilometres per hour (500 mph).[37] They typically have a launch weight of about 1,500 kilograms (3,300 lb)[38] and can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead.
This would allow it to act as a decoy for much of its flight, and then deliberately approach a selected defensive site and attack it. As such, the program was renamed Subsonic Cruise Armed Decoy, retaining the SCAD acronym. Cruise missiles can be categorized by payload/warhead size, speed, range, and launch platform. Often variants of the same missile are produced for different launch platforms (for instance, air- and submarine-launched versions). The JASSM project began in 1995 after the cancellation of the AGM-137 TSSAM project. The TSSAM was designed as a high precision stealthy missile for use at standoff distances, but poor management of the project resulted in rising costs.
AGM-158C LRASM
Originally produced by General Dynamics, Tomahawk is currently manufactured by Raytheon. In the category of hypersonic weapons, scramjet-powered cruise missiles are seen as a more affordable and versatile option than the larger and more expensive hypersonic glide vehicles, such as the air-launched Lockheed AGM-183A. The 2019 Missile Defense Review highlighted the need to focus on near-peer cruise missiles and directed the Pentagon to recommend an organization to have acquisition authority of cruise missile defense for the homeland. The designation requirement also appeared in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, but the Pentagon has yet to choose what organization will be in charge of the effort. Tomahawks are launched vertically from ships, but they can be launched horizontally from torpedo tubes on attack submarines or from external launchers attached to a submarine’s hull. Thereafter it is powered by a turbofan engine that does not emit much heat, which makes infrared detection difficult.
North Korea says it tested ‘super-large’ cruise missile warhead and new anti-aircraft missile
The missile’s infrared seeker expects the contrast and clutter you typically see over dry ground. But it’s the JASSM-ER that U.S. forces are counting on to win a war with China. By lightening the missile’s frame and rearranging its components to make more room for fuel, Lockheed doubled its range without adding much to its $1.3-million unit cost. Tomahawk Block IV missile demonstrated its moving target capability in tests conducted in February 2015. The US Navy awarded a $251m contract to Raytheon for the production and delivery of Tomahawk Block IV missiles for both the US Navy and Royal Navy in September 2014.
ALCM
For cruise missiles, decision makers may have only a couple of minutes and salvos of cruise missiles can attack from different directions, complicating the approach to defeating the threat. WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s plan to defend the U.S. homeland from cruise missiles is starting to take shape after a prolonged period of development because until recently, the threat was perceived as a more distant regional one, a senior Air Force official said. CALCM's next employment occurred in September 1996 during Operation Desert Strike. In response to Iraq's continued hostilities against the Kurds in northern Iraq, the Air Force launched 13 CALCMs in a joint attack with the Navy. This mission has put the CALCM program in the spotlight for future modifications.
The command posted a video online Wednesday that shows the test process at Norway’s Andøya Space Defense Range from multiple perspectives. A parachute attached to the Rapid Dragon deployment box is tossed from the open cargo bay of the MC-130, which then unfurls and swiftly pulls the pallet out of the aircraft. But Taiwan can win, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. CSIS recently ran a series of war games simulating a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2026 and varying degrees of U.S. and Japanese intervention.
She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College. Once the design is created, “it’s time to go out and defend the design,” Murray said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference July 14. This translates to conducting modeling and simulation to prove out, in part, that the architecture will work.
The system was otherwise similar to Quail, using a simple inertial navigation system (INS) allowing the missile to fly a pre-programmed course. The Tomahawk (/ˈtɒməhɔːk/) Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is a long-range, all-weather, jet-powered, subsonic cruise missile that is primarily used by the United States Navy and Royal Navy in ship and submarine-based land-attack operations. North Korea first tested a long-range cruise missile system in September 2021 and has implied the missiles are being developed to be armed with nuclear warheads. North Korea said Friday it test-fired long-range cruise missiles off its eastern coast a day earlier, adding to a provocative streak in weapons demonstrations as its rivals step up military training. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force has for the first time in an overseas test used its Rapid Dragon system, in which cruise missiles on pallets are launched from the back of a mobility aircraft.
The contract includes 65 submarine torpedo tube-launched missiles for the Royal Navy. The missile can be launched from over 140 US Navy ships and submarines and Astute and Trafalgar class submarines of the Royal Navy. All cruisers, destroyers, guided missile and attack submarines in the US Navy are equipped with a Tomahawk weapons system.
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