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By Norman Polmar, Author, The Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet
Going Downtown the Safe Way
Table 1:. Tomahawk Launches in Gulf War | ||
Launch Platform | Launches* |
|
Pittsburgh SSN-720 | 4 missiles |
|
Louisville SSN-724 | 8 missiles |
|
Missouri BB-63 | 28 missiles |
|
Wisconsin BB-64 | 24 missiles |
|
Bunker Hill CG-52 | 28 missiles |
|
Mobile Bay CG-53 | 22 missiles | (U |
Leyte Gulf CG-55 | 2 missiles |
|
San Jacinto CG-56 | 14 missiles | [1] |
Philippine Sea CG-58 | 10 missiles |
|
Princeton CG-59 | 3 missiles |
|
Normandy CG-60 | 26 missiles |
|
Virginia CGN-38 | 2 missiles |
|
Mississippi CGN-40 | 5 missiles | [1] |
Spruance DD-963 | 2 missiles |
|
Paul F. Foster DD-964 | 40 missiles | [2] |
Caron DD-970 | 2 missiles |
|
Leftwich DD-984 | 8 missiles |
|
Fife DD-991 | 60 missiles | m |
♦Brackets indicate TLAM launches that did not transition to | ||
cruise flight. |
|
|
phe Gulf War marked a dramatic change in naval warfare. In the same fanner that the Battle of Midway- ought 50 years ago—marked the advent ? carrier-based aircraft as the principal actor in naval warfare, the brief, inten- *'Ve Gulf conflict marked the debut of ® Tomahawk land-attack missile LaM) as the Navy’s principal strike Weapon.
This occurrence is particularly important because the Navy is currently de- Ve oping a definitive strategic concept based on the idea of naval orces fighting from the sea rather an on the sea. In reality, this is °w the U.S. Navy has been em- P °yed since 1942, as well as fight- ng at sea during World War II and •'eparing to fight at sea during the e ° “ ^ar. The Tomahawk, how- ®r> adds a new dimension to 'ghting from the sea.
he Gulf War was the proving round for the Tomahawk missile,
>ch enables essentially any sur- laCe warship or submarine to unch long-range strike weapons fo 3 COnvent*°nal conflict. Hereto- f re’ .’■hat capability was reserved yf aircraft carriers. After World niia ^ '■here was always a finite mber of carriers—12, 13, 14, or ofJ. aPs 15—that could launch tnlce aircraft.
carrier-based aircraft are m ainly more flexible, can carry Vaa{e Payload, and have other ad- Tl A^es 'n cornparison with Cru- s> 'here are currently 52
'ha'S»n 3nc* destr°yers and more
laun , * attack submarines that can hutio ^omahawk missiles. This distri- diff°n i°^ str'hing power makes it more and'CU * ^°r an enemy t0 locate, track, yid„attack naval strike forces, and pro- maaS more effective strike options in and ^ scenar'os- And, of course, pilots Tom^ crevvmen are not put at risk in rier ■ aw^ attacks, as they are with car- ne'air strikes.
llano'0'11^ downt°wn,” the bombing of Viet°! and Haiphong-area targets in the nam War, and the subsequent air
0ceedings / August 1992 strikes in Lebanon and Libya resulted in the capture and/or loss of U.S. pilots and air crewmen; their loss—beyond the personal tragedies—caused national political embarrassment.
When the Gulf War began on the night of 16 January 1991, the opening “shots” were Tomahawk cruise missile launches from U.S. Navy surface ships in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The first launch was from the Aegis cruiser San Jacinto (CG-56), operating in the Red Sea, early on the morning of 17 January. The first missiles arrived over the heavily defended Iraqi capital of Baghdad at about the same time as U.S. Air Force F-117 “stealth” attack planes, carrying guided bombs.
During the six-week air war of Janu- ary-February 1991, surface ships and submarines launched 288 Tomahawks with a success rate of 98% (six missiles failed to achieve a flight profile after launch). (See Table 1.) Of those missiles.
116 were launched during the first 24 hours of the air war in an effort to destroy key air-defense and command-and- control activities. The official Department of Defense report states: “The observed accuracy of TLAM, for which unambiguous target imagery is available, met or exceeded the accuracy mission planners predicted.”1
The qualification “observed accuracy” was needed because it was impossible to determine the damage done in some attacks, as Tomahawks would strike a target shortly before manned aircraft hit, or multiple missiles were used. But bomb damage assessment (BDA) photos of Tomahawk targets show that missiles struck within a few yards of their aim point, making the TLAM the fabled “surgical bombing” weapon long sought by air power enthusiasts.
During the Gulf air war, F-l 17 attack planes were the only strike aircraft to operate over Baghdad at night, and Tomahawks were the only U.S. weapons to strike the city in daylight (as well as at night). Indeed, one of the most vivid images of the war was a Tomahawk streaking along a roadway at treetop level, while a British television correspondent on a sixth-floor balcony of the Al-Rashad Hotel in Baghdad reported looking down to see a Tomahawk cruise missile streaking by! Conventional aircraft were not used in strikes against Baghdad and certain other Iraqi targets because of the heavy antiaircraft defenses.
Battleships, cruisers, and destroyers launched 276 of the missiles. While the battleships Missouri (BB- 63) and Wisconsin (BB-64) received the most press and television coverage as missile shooters, the majority of the missiles were fired by unsung cruisers and destroyers.
Twelve TLAMs were launched from submarines—the Louisville (SSN-724), operating in the Red Sea, launched eight missiles, and the Pittsburgh (SSN-720), in the eastern Mediterranean, launched four missiles. These submarine launches
105
Proceedings / August
were the first war shots fired by U.S. undersea craft since World War II. While representing only 4% of the TLAMs fired, the submarine launches did demonstrate that the submarines could operate as part of an integrated strike force— receiving targets and related strike data while at sea. (Both the Louisville and Pittsburgh are improved SSN-688-type submarines, with 12 vertical-launch tubes for Tomahawk missiles. These as well as other U.S. attack submarines can also launch Tomahawks from torpedo tubes; however, those missiles replace torpedoes or mines with the submarines having a total capacity of some 25 tube-launched weapons.)
In future conflicts, the threats to U.S. surface forces may result in submarines being the only feasible means of attacking land targets because of their stealth. This role for submarines is being recognized by some leaders in the submarine community, as evidenced by Vice Admiral Roger Bacon, Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Undersea Warfare, observing that his submarine skippers are declaring: “Why are we deploying with so many torpedoes? We need more Tomahawk cruise missiles.”[1][2] When surface combatants can enter action, their Tomahawk firepower can be considerable; for example, the Navy is fitting 24 of the 31 Spruance (DD-963)-class destroyers with 61 vertical-launch cells with no degradation of their other combat capabilities, while the seven other ships of the class have eight Tomahawks fitted in armored box launchers.[3]
Beyond launch flexibility, the Tomahawk is also flexible in terms of attack capability. There are at least four types of Tomahawk missiles available for ships: the Tomahawk antiship missile (TASM), which has a range of some 750 nautical miles and carries a 1,000-pound conventional warhead for attacking ships; the 106
TLAM-N, which is a nuclear weapon with a W80 warhead and a range in excess of 1,000 nautical miles; the TLAM-C with a range of some 700 nautical miles and a 1,000-pound conventional warhead; the similar TLAM-D that can dispense 166 scatterable BLU-97 bomblets for attacking airfields and vehicles; and a variant—used in the Gulf War—that dispenses spools of wire for attacking electric power plants.[4]
In April 1992 it was revealed that a warhead containing carbon-fiber wire spools had also been developed for the Tomahawk.[5] Several of the missiles fired on the first day of the Gulf War carried the still-experimental warheads, which upon detonation, disrupted Iraqi electric power, helping to blind air-defense and command-and-control activities.
The warhead, developed under a highly classified program, showered outdoor switching and transformer areas of electricity-generating plants with thousands of rolls of very fine carbon fibers. When released by a Tomahawk, the fiber spools unwound in the air, the fibers then dropping onto power lines and transformers, causing massive short circuits but not permanent damage. Reportedly, each Tomahawk could spread thousands of the mini-spools over a single target when the warhead detonated to spread the spools. (They were not “dispensed” as are the BLU-97 bomblets.)
The Block III TLAMs now in production have a smaller but more lethal high-explosive warhead with an extended range permitted by additional fuel; these missiles also have a global positioning system (GPS) receiver for improved accuracy and time-of-arrival control to permit coordinated missile or aircraft and missile strikes. Also, it will be easier for submarines at sea to receive retargeting information for the missiles.
General Dynamics, which produces
Tomahawks along with McDonnell Douglas Missile Systems Co., is proposing an antisubmarine variant of the Tomahawk as an alternative to the Sea Lance project for both surface ship and submarine use. This concept provides for the Tomahawk to be launched upon indications of a hostile submarine in the distance (probably by passive sonar detection or electronic/communications intercept).
As the Tomahawk nears the reported submarine position or datum, it releases several sonobuoys. An on-board datalink and computer permit the orbiting missile to “fix” the submarine and, when the computer attains an attack solution, a Mk-46 or Mk-50 lightweight torpedo is released into the water. The antisubmarine Tomahawk, being developed by General Dynamics in collaboration with Magnavox and Hazeltine, is said to have an effective range of 300 nautical miles and can receive datum updates from the launching ship while the missile is in flight.
While the various conventional Tomahawk variants are gaining popularity with military planners, the nuclear variants have been taken off warships and put into storage, and future production has been canceled. Reportedly, 367 TLAM-N missiles were produced before the recent cutback in U.S. nuclear weapons procurement ended that program. The Air Force had also procured a Tomahawk ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) with a nuclear warhead, but that missile was scrapped under terms of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) agreement between the then-Soviet Union and the United States.
While the U.S. Navy is suffering massive reductions in ships, submarines, and aircraft, new systems and weapons are expanding its capabilities. One of the most effective new weapons is the Tomahawk. Although now discarded from the strategic strike role for which it was originally developed, it holds promise o> being the decisive weapon in future conventional conflicts.
'Department of Defense Conduct of the Persian Gu^ j War (April 1992)
[2]VADM Roger F. Bacon, USN, “Submarine WarD16 It’s A-Changing,” Naval Institute Proceedings, -h1"’ 1992. p. 52. 1
'The Spruances being fitted with the 61-cell missd£ 1 installation do give up their ASROC short-range t°r pedo launcher.
[4]The bomblets weigh 3.4 pounds and are fitted i" packets of 24; these submunitions can be armor-piefi: ing, fragmentation, or incendiary.
’Robert Holzer and Neil Munro, "Microwave Weap° Stuns Iraqis,” Defense News, 13 April 1992, PP ’ 52.
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