Grandson of TASM?

U.S. Navy photo

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far, away, the US Navy fielded a surface to surface missile that could target adversaries at extended ranges--and by that, I mean in excess of 200 miles.  This missile was known as the Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile, or TASM.  A missile that was before its time (due to the immaturity of Navy ISR and off-board guidance capabilities), the plain truth was that it would have been difficult to employ with confidence in conflict because of the large area of uncertainty that would be created by the lengthy time of flight of the missile.  When the Wall fell, most of these missiles were re-purposed into land attack variants, and the long decline of the surface force's ability to meaningfully participate in the Offensive SUW mission began, a decline that SWO leadership now seeks to reverse in its concept of Distributed Lethality.

And now there is this report from the Naval Air Systems Command, of a test in which synthetic guidance technology was used to guide a Tomahawk to end-game against a moving surface target.  I cannot stress how important this step forward is in the effort to create problems for peer and near peer adversaries who currently enjoy a decided and growing ASuW advantage as the US Navy seeks to seize tactically and operationally relevant periods of sea control to enable power projection operations.  End-game uncertainty was created operational doubt in the minds of the US Navy that would have employed the TASM.  The ISR complex simply didn't support targeting precision at extended ranges, and the lack of an ability to provide target updates in flight meant the seeker in the TASM had a progressively larger area to search while in-flight, thereby lowering probability of hit as a function of range.

What we see in this test is important and exciting, as both of these problems appear to be on the way to being solved.  Clearly, the Navy's maritime ISR complex is on the upswing, with the introduction of the P-8, BAMS, and Fire Scout pointing the way to a clearer recognized surface picture.  Specific to this test though, a Tomahawk was able to make use of that picture and receive off-board guidance to increase hit probability on a moving surface target.

This is enormously good news for many reasons.  First, the Tomahawk is a proven weapon system, and it has a relatively small radar cross section to minimize its detection--it isn't invisible mind you, but it is a challenging target to track.  Second, it puts long range OASuW back squarely within the reach of every ship that can currently fire the TLAM--that means, VLS configured ships.  The gaping hole in our Fleet design created by the decision not to equip late model DDG's with OSuW mission capability could be addressed in a (relatively) low cost approach with minimal integration difficulty.

Now of course, such a system requires a networked approach to updating target position, and we all understand how lucrative such a network would be as a target for an adversary.  Consequently, we must also redouble efforts to create redundancy in the capability those networks provide.

This is the very definition of an opportunistic approach to increasing surface force lethality in a manner that creates real ISR and engagement difficulties for any adversary.   This is Distributed Lethality.