tomahawk cruise missile explosion

U.S. Navy Trains JMSDF Sailors on Tomahawk Cruise Missile

The u.s. navy has completed the first round of a training program for the japan maritime self-defense force (jmsdf) on how to handle u.s.-made long-range tomahawk cruise missiles..

Kosuke Takahashi 02 Apr 2024

Japan plans to acquire the Tomahawk cruise missiles from fiscal year 2025 to 2027.

Around 25 JMSDF sailors went aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell at Yokosuka Naval Base, homeport of the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet, in the five-day program that started on March 25 and finished on March 29.

“The Ministry of Defense and the Self-Defense Forces are strengthening its stand-off defense capabilities in order to disrupt and defeat the forces invading Japan early and from far away,” Japan’s Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said at a press conference on March 29.

“As a part of our effort, regarding Tomahawk, the United States Navy has been conducting a training course for JMSDF personnel starting from March 25th. In this course, the U.S. Navy provides expertise required for the operation of Tomahawk missile,” Kihara said, adding that U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel announced the U. S. will continue to conduct such training every other month.

“What does credible deterrence look like? Building Japan’s crucial counterstrike capability with week one of Tomahawk cruise missile training at US Navy Yokosuka. Welcome to a new era in strength, security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region,” Emanuel wrote on X on March 28, along with four photos taken with U.S. Navy members.

What does credible deterrence look like? Building Japan’s crucial counterstrike capability with week one of Tomahawk cruise missile training at @USNavy Yokosuka. Welcome to a new era in strength, security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. pic.twitter.com/Puy28jM9HX — ラーム・エマニュエル駐日米国大使 (@USAmbJapan) March 28, 2024

The training program is are the first round of JMSDF personnel to learn the basic procedure for launching a Tomahawk using real equipment from U.S. sailors from the Surface Combat Systems Training Command Western Pacific in the McCampbell ’s combat information center (CIC), the tactical heart of the vessel.

Inside the McCampbell ’s CIC, they participated in a simulated missile strike mission to learn the inner workings of the Tomahawks and their control systems, Stars & Stripes reported on March 28 , citing Cmdr. Mike Arnold, the training command officer in charge.

“In a dimly lit CIC illuminated by blue light, an JMSDF member sat in front of a screen, operated equipment and enthusiastically asked questions to American sailors,” Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun newspaper also reported on the training on the same day.

The five-day training followed Japan’s signing of a letter of acceptance (LOA) in January to buy up to 400 Tomahawks from the US to beef up its counterstrike capabilities against enemy missile sites and other targets. This contract was worth about 254 billion yen ($1.7 billion) with the U.S. Government. Asked about the future schedule, Kihara said at the press conference that in addition to the training this time around, based on the LOA concluded in January, the JMSDF will receive training from the U.S. side to train personnel related to more advanced Tomahawk operations in time for the Tomahawk acquisition starting in FY2025.

The Tomahawks will be fitted aboard four classes of JMSDF Aegis-equipped destroyers:

• Kongo-class
• Atago-class

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• Missiles of the World
• The United States

Tomahawk at a Glance

Tomahawk Development

The U.S. Navy began its development of sea-launched cruise missiles in 1972. 2 The Tomahawk was designed to fly at subsonic speed while maintaining a low altitude, making it difficult to detect on radar. It uses tailored guidance systems to maneuver while at such low elevations.

There were three original Tomahawk designs, the nuclear-tipped TLAM-N, the ground-launched Gryphon, and the conventional TASM.

BGM-109G Gryphon

In late 1970s, the U.S. Navy sought a precision land attack cruise missile capable of a much smaller CEP. Two Block II versions were produced; the TLAM-C and the TLAM-D.

Service History

The Tomahawk was first deployed in combat in the 1991 Gulf War in Operation Desert Storm, with the first salvo launched from the USS Paul F. Foster (DD 964) at Iraqi targets. 18 Overall, the mission achieved initial success.

However, before GPS guidance was implemented, the Tomahawk faced serious navigation issues in 2003’s Operation Iraqi Freedom. Due to the indistinct desert terrain in region, the missile’s TERCOM system was not adequate to guide the missile to its targets in Iraq. 19 Approximately ten Tomahawks drifted off course and crashed (”clobbered”) into the ground in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran in the initial phase of Iraqi Freedom. 20

• “Tomahawk Cruise Missile,” United States Navy Fact File, August 14, 2014, http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=2200&tid=1300&ct=2
• “Tomahawk Cruise Missile,” United States Navy Fact File, August 14, 2014, http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=2200&tid=1300&ct=2.
• Sam LaGrone, “West: U.S. Navy Anti-Ship Tomahawk Set for Surface Ships, Subs Starting in 2021,” USNI News , February 18, 2016, https://news.usni.org/2016/02/18/west-u-s-navy-anti-ship-tomahawk-set-for-surface-ships-subs-starting-in-2021.
• “Tomahawk Long-Range Cruise Missile,” Naval Technology, http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/tomahawk-long-range-cruise-missile/.
• “RGM/UGM-109 Tomahawk,” in IHS Jane’s Weapons: Strategic 2015-2016, ed. James C. O’Halloran (United Kingdom: IHS, 2015), 219-223.
• “General Dynamics/McDonnell Douglas BGM-109G Gryphon” National Museum of the Air Force, April 26, 2011.http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=18194.
• Missile Defense Project, “Tomahawk,” Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, September 19, 2016, last modified June 15, 2018, https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/tomahawk/ .
• Fuller, Malcolm. “Tomahawk/RGM/UGM-109B/C/D/E” Jane’s Weapons: Naval. December 17, 2012.
• Department of the Navy, Naval Vessel Historical Evaluation – Paul F. Foster Final Determination (Washington, DC: 2013), https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Portals/103/Documents/TeamShips/SEA21/InactiveShips/Historic/2013/EDD964-Paul-F.-Foster-Final-DOI.pdf.
• “The Tomahawk Missile’s First Mission Was Over…Iran?,” War on the Rocks, April 6, 2015, https://warisboring.com/the-tomahawk-missile-s-first-mission-was-over-iran/.
• Jeffrey Lewis, ”Why the Navy Should Retire TLAM-N,” Arms Control Wonk (blog), December 13, 2009, https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/202560/why-the-navy-should-retire-tlam-n/.
• “What is a Tomahawk Missile?” History.com, April 7, 2017, https://www.history.com/news/what-is-a-tomahawk-missile.
• NBC News, “U.S. Launches Missiles at Syrian Base Over Chemical Weapons Attack,” NBC News, April 7, 2017, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-launches-missiles-syrian-base-after-chemical-weapons-attack-n743636.

How Tomahawk cruise missiles may send messages to (and from) Syria

The Tomahawk cruise missiles being readied for possible use against Syrian government targets date back to the Cold War, but the new generation of the low-flying weapons has capabilities that Ronald Reagan’s generals could only imagine. 

The most advanced Tomahawks fly at 550 mph, have GPS, onboard digital maps, video cameras, two-way satellite links and a navigation system that allows them to loiter over an area and wait for their targets to pop up. That's in addition to the 1,000-pound bomb each Tomahawk typically carries.

The U.S. Navy can use those capabilities to send a message to Syria's leaders about their chemical weapons program, just as it sent messages in the past to leaders of  Iraq , Yugoslavia , Afghanistan, Sudan , Yemen and Libya . Almost as important, the Tomahawks can send messages back — in the form of real-time battle damage assessments.

As in those earlier conflicts, Tomahawk cruise missiles are America's point of the spear for the Syria crisis. President Barack Obama and his aides, members of Congress, leaders of other countries and U.N. officials are continuing to debate if and when to attack Syria. Meanwhile, Pentagon leaders have their battle plan ready, and the Tomahawks are expected to deal the first blow.

High-flying airplanes and remote-controlled drones could conceivably come into play as well. But the low-flying, fast-moving Tomahawks are more suited to the task, due to their ability to evade the Syrian military's radar systems and air defenses.

Commanders on guided-missile destroyers and submarines in the Mediterranean could launch the missiles soon after a presidential order. The attack would likely begin at night — not only for purposes of stealth but to minimize civilian casualties. Damascus would have just a few seconds of advance warning.

"These things, you can hear them coming, even at night,"  Jeffrey White , defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told NBC News. "They're not going to be screaming in like rockets, but you hear them just trundling along." 

From nukes to cluster bombs

Sea-launched Tomahawk land-attack missiles, or TLAMs, are designed to fly at low altitude and strike high-value or heavily defended land targets. The first Tomahawk missiles entered service in 1984 and had their first operational use during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. About 2,000 Tomahawks have been fired in combat to date. Other types of cruise missiles were built to be fired from airplanes or from the ground.

The Tomahawks are made by Raytheon Missile Systems Co., based in Tucson, Ariz. Cost estimates range from $607,000 to $1.4 million or more, depending on how you account for research, development, testing and support — and inflation. That oft-quoted $607,000 figure is from fiscal year 1999.

Infographic: All about cruise missiles

Tomahawks are 20.3 feet long and 21 inches in diameter, and weigh 3,300 pounds each. They're equipped with a rocket engine for launch and a turbofan engine for cruising. They look like huge metal sausages when they blast off from their launch tubes — but once they're up in the air, they sprout 3.5-foot-long wings for flight control.

The first missiles were built to carry nuclear warheads. They could fly as far as 1,500 miles — far enough to hit Moscow from a sub in the North Sea. The nuclear-tipped Tomahawks were recently retired , though. Today's Tomahawks either carry a 1,000-pound conventional warhead or a package of 166 cluster bombs. The standard range is 1,000 miles.

The 1,000-pound bomb is powerful enough to destroy a house or blast a crater roughly 20 feet wide, as shown in this Raytheon video . The cluster bombs, also known as bomblets, spray out and have "kind of a firecracker effect," White said. Those firecrackers can be lethal to combatants — or civilians, as illustrated by the controversy over a 2009 missile attack in Yemen .

The U.S. Navy is said to have a stockpile of 3,500 Tomahawks in all. Britain has had U.S.-made Tomahawks in its arsenal since 2008.

Can they really fly through a window?

The latest generation of Tomahawk missiles relies on gyroscopes as well as GPS, radar readings, digital maps and scene-matching software to stay on course. An onboard camera can show remote operators what the Tomahawks are seeing. Data and imagery are transmitted via a two-way satellite communication system. Once the information gets to the satellites, it can be sent to the commanders back on the ships — or to the Pentagon and the White House.

The Tomahawks' targeting is often said to be so precise they can fly through a specific window in a building, but White said that feature may have been oversold. "The accuracy is about 5 meters," he told NBC News. "You're not going to hit a specific window or a specific tank, but you're going to hit a specific building."

The missiles can be reprogrammed while they're in flight to go after any of 15 pre-selected alternate targets, or head for new coordinates sent to the Tomahawks via satellite.

What will the missiles hit?

Each of the four U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers in the Mediterranean is carrying dozens of Tomahawk missiles. Still more Tomahawks are aboard two U.S. submarines and one British sub in the vicinity. The targets are expected to include military units and command-and-control facilities that were involved in mounting the reported chemical attacks — but not the suspected factories or depots that hold chemical weapons.

White said the target list and the extent of the missile attack depends of the message that Obama and his advisers want to send. "If it's just to demonstrate that we do have a red line (on the use of chemical weapons), the attack won't be too big," he said.

But anytime the Tomahawks are brought out, it's a big deal. "These Tomahawks are non-trivial weapons," White said. "For attacking structures, for using bomblets to attack personnel and vehicles in the open, these are very effective weapons."

More about the Syria crisis:

• U.S. military options in Syria: A briefing
• What happens after a strike on Syria? It depends
• NBC News archive on the Syria crisis

For more about Tomahawk technology, check out this National Geographic TV   documentary . 

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the  NBC News Science Facebook page , following  @b0yle on Twitter and adding the  Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the  Tech & Science newsletter , delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out  "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

How powerful was the Beirut blast?

Experts estimate the massive warehouse explosion that sent a devastating blast wave across Beirut could be one of the strongest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.

“On a scale, this explosion is scaled down from a nuclear bomb rather than up from a conventional bomb,” said Roland Alford, managing director of Alford Technologies, a British company that specialises in disposal of explosive ordnance. “This is probably up there among the biggest non-nuclear explosions of all time.”

Experts have estimated the size of the blast as being the equivalent of 200 to 300 tons of high explosives. Here’s what that figure looks like compared to other accidental explosions and conventional weapons.

Weapon yield

Power in TNT equivalent

air-to-ground

Mk-84 500lb bomb

Mk-84 2,000lb

Tomahawk cruise

GBU-57 30,000lb

“bunker buster”

bombing - 1995

Other explosions

TNT equivalent

Ammonium nitrate

bomb killed 168

disaster - 1986

Explosion after a nuclear meltdown

GBU-43B (MOAB)

“Mother of All Bombs” is the U.S. most powerful

non-nuclear weapon.

W54 Davy Crockett

Small nuclear rocket developed by the U.S. in the 1950s

Texas fertiliser

plant - 2013

exploded killing

Tianjin, China - 2015

Explosions at a warehouse storing ammonium nitrate killed at least 116 people.

Toulouse, France - 2001

An ammonium nitrate deposit exploded killing 31.

FOAB - ATBIP

Russia’s “Father of All Bombs” (FOAB) is reportedly the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the world.

Beirut blast

300-400 tons

Oppau, Germany - 1921

An explosion of ammonium sulphate and nitrate fertiliser at the Oppau plant in Germany killed 565 people.

Halifax, Canada - 1917

Loaded with highly volatile explosives, the French steamer Mont-Blanc collided with the Norwegian ship Imo. Around 1,950 people were killed and about 9,000 more were injured.

1945, Hiroshima, Japan

15,000 tons

The first nuclear bomb used in war. Dropped by the U.S., the bomb killed tens of thousands and flattened the Japanese city of Hiroshima in an instant.

Hellfire air-to-ground

Oklahoma bombing - 1995

Chernobyl disaster - 1986

Hiroshima, Japan - 1945

Hellfire missile

U.S. air-to-ground tactical missile

Small U.S. unguided bomb

Mk-84 2,000lb bomb

American general-purpose bomb which entered service in the Vietnam war.

Tomahawk missile

Intermediate-range cruise missile launched from U.S. Navy ships and submarines at subsonic speed.

GBU-57 30,000lb bomb

The Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is a precision-guided “bunker buster” bomb

Ammonium nitrate was used in a bomb in an explosion that blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people

Explosion and fire after a reactor meltdown at the Chernobyl power plant.

“Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) is the U.S. most powerful non-nuclear weapon.

W54 Davy Crockett nuke

A small unguided nuclear rocket developed by the U.S. in the 1950s

Texas fertiliser plant - 2013

An ammonium nitrate deposit exploded in the Texas town of West. 14 people died and about 200 more were injured.

Explosions at a warehouse storing various chemicals including 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrate killed at least 116 people.

An ammonium nitrate deposit exploded in Toulouse killing 31 and injuring 2,500.

U.S. air-to-ground tactical missile.

Mk-82 500lb bomb

Small U.S. unguided bomb.

The Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is a precision-guided “bunker buster” bomb.

Ammonium nitrate mixed with other substances to make a bomb in an explosion that blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

Explosion and fire after a reactor meltdown at the Chernobyl power plant. The world’s worst nuclear accident.

“Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) is the U.S. most powerful non-nuclear weapon, it was first deployed in combat in Afghanistan, 2017.

An ammonium nitrate deposit exploded killing 31 people.

The Russian bomb nicknamed the “Father of All Bombs” (FOAB) is reportedly the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the world.

Ammonium nitrate mixed with other substances to make a bomb in an explosion that blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people

George William Herbert, an adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies Center for Nonproliferation Studies and a missile and effects consultant, used two methods to estimate the yield of the explosion. One used visual evidence of the blast itself along with damage assessments. The other calculation was based on the amount of ammonium nitrate reportedly at the source of the explosion.

Both techniques estimate the yield as a few hundred tons of TNT equivalent, with the overlap being 200 to 300, Herbert told Reuters.

Aerial footage shows damage at the blast site in Beirut two days after the explosion. August 6, 2020 | Reuters/Bader-Photography.com

The blast rattled buildings on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, about 100 miles (160 km) away.

A string of explosions

Seismological data suggests that six blasts preceded the main explosion, the last of them a combustion of fireworks that apparently set off a warehouse full of ammonium nitrate, an Israeli analyst said on Thursday.

The six blasts were at 11-second intervals during the Aug. 4 incident, with the main explosion following the last by around 43 seconds, Boaz Hayoun of Israel’s Tamar Group told Reuters.

Hayoun, a former military engineering officer whose current roles include overseeing safety standards for explosives use in Israel, said his analysis was based on data from seismological sensors stationed across the region.

“I cannot say categorically what caused this, but I can say these blasts were at the same location,” he told Reuters.

Readings from a seismograph obtained by Reuters showing the explosion in Beirut on August 4, 2020. IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology)

Among the sensors cited by Hayoun was an array installed about 70 km (43 miles) off Lebanon’s coast by the international geological project IRIS - which cast doubt on his conclusions.

IRIS said its sensors picked up more than five “small bursts” at intervals of around 11 seconds before the main Beirut explosion, a sequence that continued after the incident.

“I do not believe that they are associated with the large explosion in Beirut,” Jerry Carter, director of IRIS data services, told Reuters.

“They could be from a seismic survey,” he added, referring to geologists carrying out airgun bursts for underwater mapping.

Lebanese officials have blamed the explosion, which killed at least 172 people and left much of the capital in ruins, on a huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate catching fire after being stored unsafely at the port for years.

President Michel Aoun has said investigators would also look into the possibility of “external interference” such as a bomb, as well as negligence or an accident as causes.

Research and Information on Accidents database (ARIA); Environmental Emergencies Centre (EEC); NASA; Nuclear Weapons Education Project, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); and Reuters calculations.

Marco Hernandez, Simon Scarr

Additional reporting by:

Gerry Doyle, Gurman Bhatia, Anand Katakam, Manas Sharma, Prasanta Dutta

Read the March magazine issue on nuclear testing

A new nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile: Just say no

By Robert J. Goldston | July 19, 2023

• Copy link Linked copied

As can be seen in the headlines, the House of Representatives recently passed their version of the National Defense Authorization act, laden with provisions to fight “wokeness” in the military. This will create difficulties for reaching agreement with the Senate on a final bill. However, lost in the headlines is the fact that Congress will have to decide whether to fund the development of a new nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile (acronym: SLCM-N) and its associated warhead. Based on its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, the Biden administration zeroed out funding for this system in its budget request for 2024, but both the House version and Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act authorize funding for the development of SLCM-N and its warhead. There are, nonetheless, multiple steps ahead to the point of actually appropriating funds (through appropriations bills), and so there are still real opportunities for informed decision-making.

A policy debate [1] is raging about the development and deployment of the new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile. Advocates [2] , [3] argue that in a world where the United States and Russia are in a state of extreme tension, and China is increasing its nuclear arsenal, the United States needs to strengthen its nuclear weapons capabilities, particularly at the so-called “middle rung” of deterrence, between so-called “tactical” and “strategic.” Those who oppose the new cruise missile [4] , [5] often argue that it is redundant and costly and will create practical impediments for the US Navy’s conventional war-fighting capability. Their arguments are cogent, but the situation is even worse than this. Deployment of such a weapon would seriously deteriorate, not improve, US national security and that of its allies, for reasons touched on in an article in Defense One [6] and a fact sheet by the Physicists’ Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction. [7] I flesh out these arguments here.

From a top-level perspective, at a time of increased tensions, renewed efforts at arms control and restraint are most needed. It is important to pull the most incendiary logs off the fire first, as President Reagan recognized in signing the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 1987. Now is not the time to add especially flammable fuel to the fire. Much worse than being redundant and costly, the sea-launched cruise missile is extraordinarily dangerous, having even more risky characteristics than the low-yield W76-2 warheads loaded onto submarine-launched ballistic missiles following the Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review.

There are at least three strongly compelling reasons that the SLCM-N is dangerous to US national security:

• To an adversary, a SLCM-N is indistinguishable from a conventional sea-launched cruise missile, so the very existence of the SLCM-N makes the use of a conventional SLCM a possible trigger for thermonuclear war, due to misattribution of a conventionally armed missile as one carrying a nuclear warhead. Since the Baltic and Black Seas are only 500 miles from Moscow and the Yellow Sea is only 500 miles from Beijing, with Taiwan about 1,000 miles from Beijing, stealthy SLCM-Ns with a range of 1,500 miles would create the risk for Moscow and Beijing of an undetected decapitating nuclear strike, and as a result create for the United States enhanced risk of disastrous split-second miscalculation by its potential adversaries. This is what the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty was designed to mitigate, and what the current restraint on intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe is continuing. The United States would be throwing explosive logs onto an already hot fire with the SLCM-N.

Conventional Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missiles were employed in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War. Misattribution was not a significant risk, as Kuwait is nearly 2,000 miles from Moscow, and relations at the time between the United States under President George H.W. Bush and the Soviet Union under President Gorbachev were favorable. After President Bush removed all nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles from service in 1992, conventional Tomahawk cruise missiles were used in Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Syria [8] without any risk of misattribution.

NATO’s defense of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and/or Estonia would likely require the use of barrages of conventionally armed sea-launched cruise missiles. This would render misattribution by Russia an existential risk for the United States. Crucially, the deployment of SLCM-Ns would reduce, not enhance, the United States’ ability to defend its NATO allies.

• More generally, any use of a sea-launched cruise missile would be extraordinarily ambiguous; an adversary could not know whether it carried a conventional or nuclear payload, or, if the warhead were nuclear, what its yield might be. Greatly enhancing this ambiguity is an adversary’s inability to know where a stealthy, maneuverable cruise missile is headed, even if it is detected after launch. The SLCM-N blurs the escalation ladder in an extraordinarily dangerous way, through wide ambiguity in both its yield and its target.

The ambiguity is even worse than that which surrounds a submarine-launched ballistic (not cruise) missile armed with a low-yield W76-2. This missile certainly carries a nuclear warhead, and its trajectory can be determined. Because this submarine-launched missile is ballistic, adversaries will know in advance if it is headed to a strategic target in Moscow or Beijing, or to a battlefield tactical target.

• Arms-racing is now a three-player game. The United States is planning to build 38 Virginia-class attack submarines, each of which could carry up to 16 SLCM-N’s, with a potential total of 608 warheads [2] , even ignoring the possibility that these missiles could be placed on surface ships. Assuming reasonably that both Russia and China would feel that they must match such increased firepower, the United States could eventually be facing twice as many additional warheads as it mounted.

Adding nuclear warheads is not a wise long-term strategy for US security in the modern threat environment. In a three-way arms race, while the United loses in a two-for-one ratio when it increases nuclear warhead numbers, it can gain by a two-to-one ratio if it negotiates warhead limitations or, better, reductions with Russia and China.

The bottom line is that a new sea-launched cruise missile will deteriorate US national security in both the short and the long term. Furthermore, the new three-peer nuclear arms environment we are facing provides a strong incentive for arms control, not for arms racing.

[1] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12084

[2] https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/the-nuclear-sea-launched-cruise-missile-worth-the-investment-deterrence

[3] https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/strengthening-deterrence-with-slcm-n/

[4] https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/05/12/taxpayers-should-question-pitch-to-fund-another-naval-nuclear-weapon-pub-87120

[5] https://armscontrolcenter.org/fact-sheet-nuclear-sea-launched-cruise-missiles-are-wasteful

[6] https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/04/biden-should-sink-new-nuclear-weapon/173473/

[7] https://physicistscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/SLCM-N-Fact-Seet-April-20-2023-FINAL.pdf?emci=dce192ed-0f0a-ee11-907c-00224832eb73&emdi=ea000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&ceid=

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile)

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Keywords: SLCM-N , nuclear-armed , sea-launched cruise missile Topics: Analysis , Nuclear Risk , Nuclear Weapons

We consider ourselves to be a civilized sentient species, yet we spend trillions of dollars annually building WMD that can destroy the human race in multiple ways. How dare we consider ourselves ‘civilized’ when we focus our efforts on multiple ways to exterminate mankind?

I agree fully but as we cannot trust foreign nuclear armed nations, I would argue for a naval-based platform of defensive ABM missiles, preferably hypersonic to destroy offensive enemy missiles during launch phase. Instant reliable launch location & tracking is also required.

Robert J. Goldston

Robert J. Goldston is a professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. He was the director of the US Energy... Read More

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Tomahawk missiles: a modular, incredibly accurate and brutally lethal weapon.

• War Articles

The Tomahawk missile first joined the US Navy fleet in 1983 and following multiple recertifications, has continued to be an integral weapon for ship and submarine-based land-attack operations. Although it has been frequently employed since its creation, the Tomahawk missile is most notable for its use in the Persian Wars .

Tomahawk Missile’s Feature Some Incredible Capabilities

Priced at approximately $1 million apiece , the Tomahawk missile packs a major punch. It can reach a speed of up to 550 miles per hour, reach a distance of 700 to 1350 nautical miles depending on which variant of the missile is fired, and successfully reach its target even in heavily defended air space.

The missile can carry 160 bomblets, a 1,000-pound conventional warhead, or a W80 nuclear warhead. Using GPS, inertial navigation, and terrain contour matching, the Tomahawk has the ability to hit within ten yards of its intended target. It can also perform evasive maneuvers at extremely low altitudes, allowing it to take out diverse targets and do so without causing much collateral damage.

Tomahawk Missiles are built for Mods

The physical look of the weapon is intended to resemble a “flying torpedo”, which it does nicely. The look of the missile has remained pretty much the same since its beginning. The slim design allows the missile to be compatible with vertical launchers on surface warships as well as torpedo tubes on submarines .

The overall shelf life of the missile is 30 years and requires recertification at the time of expiration. Recertification allows ample opportunity to apply modifications to the missile that increase its lethality while also ensuring that the missile is still ready for combat.

The Tomahawk missile was built with a modular design, which makes internal modifications and upgrades relatively simple. Specifications that work efficiently can remain in the missile, while specifications that need to be replaced are done so without affecting the rest of the internal makeup of the missile.

Block Va/Vb

Block Va allows this variant of the Tomahawk to strike moving targets at sea. It has a new seeker that is capable of accurately identifying and targeting warships as far as 1,000 miles away. This variant brings the US Navy up to speed with Russian and Chinese adversaries that were already equipped with long-range anti-ship munitions.

Block Vb has a joint multi-effects warhead that allows the Tomahawk to hit more diverse land targets. It is a hard-target kill variant that is capable of destroying densely-constructed enemy assets which previously would have required more specialized munitions.

International interest

Beyond its use by the US, the Tomahawk missile has also been used by the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy in a number of operations, and now all Royal Navy fleet submarines are Tomahawk missile capable. Additionally, there had previously been expressed interest in acquiring the missile by countries like Spain, the Netherlands, Canada, and Australia, though many had not followed through with their orders.

Everything To Know About Tomahawk Missiles: Speed, Cost, And Destructive Power

Tomahawk missiles have been world famous since the first Gulf War in 1991 when the United States used the missile against Saddam Hussein's forces in Iraq and Kuwait. Since then, the missile system has been used in nearly every conflict the United States has been involved in, including recent strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Given the weapon's ubiquity, it's worth exploring what exactly a Tomahawk missile is. The United States Navy reports that over 2,300 Tomahawks have been deployed in combat, with that number increasing by the day.

According to the Missile Defense Project from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Tomahawk (full name Tomahawk Land Attack Missile) has been in service since 1983 and were first developed for the United States Navy starting in 1972. It was designed to be launched from ships or submarines and was, from the outset, made with nuclear payloads in mind. However, nuclear-armed Tomahawks have not been used in combat and are currently deactivated.

Slow and steady

The Tomahawk missile itself is a 20.3 foot long craft with a wingspan of eight and a half feet, and it weighs 3,330 pounds with all of its components. It's powered by both a rocket booster and turbofan jet engine made by Williams International. According to PBS, the rocket booster engine launches the Tomahawk in the air (hence all the smoke you may see in news broadcasts or photos you see of the missile) and then its jet engine takes the missile the rest of the way to its target.

Despite being powered by rockets and a jet engine, the Tomahawk missile itself isn't that fast, at least comparatively. It reportedly travels at a speed of around 550 miles per hour. An F-16 fighter jet tops out at 1,500 miles per hour and the much larger Minuteman III ballistic missile can reach speeds of up to 15,000 miles per hour. Supposedly, the Tomahawk's relatively low speed helps it avoid radar systems more efficiently. Additionally, it flies at an altitude of between 100 and 300 feet, much lower than conventional fighter aircraft.

Range and power

The actual payload of the Tomahawk can consist of a number of different munitions. But the primary warhead of the Tomahawk is a 1,000-pound high explosive charge. It can also carry cluster munitions consisting of small bomblets, similar to the ATACMS currently used in Ukraine . For explosive force, Tomahawks were more than enough to disable runways or sink ships.

The exact guidance system and navigational dynamics of the Tomahawk missile are classified. However, it is known that it can use GPS or inertial guidance systems to hit the target. Additionally, the U.S. Navy states that up to 15 targets can be pre-programmed for missile salvos. The Tomahawk is capable of "loitering," meaning that, provided the missile has enough fuel, it can fly around in circles to relay information or wait for the right target. It has a range of around 1,500 miles, meaning that the ship or submarine launching the missile is well out of harm's way. It is accurate to within 10 meters.

The Tomahawk's combat history

The Tomahawk is primarily made by Raytheon Missile Systems. According to budget data from the United States Marine Corps from 2022, each Tomahawk costs around $2 million. As of now, the United States and the United Kingdom are the only countries to deploy Tomahawk missiles, although Australia and Japan have put out bids to purchase Tomahawks.

The U.S. Navy states that 140 total craft are capable of launching Tomahawks. That number consists of Ohio-class submarines, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and more. The United States Army has also tested launching Tomahawks from ground-based platforms. The USS Missouri, a World War II-era battleship and the very last of its kind, was fitted to fire Tomahawks during the opening salvos of the First Gulf War. It fired a total of 28 cruise missiles, in addition to its 16-inch deck guns.

The submarines USS Louisville and USS Pittsburgh launched Tomahawks in 1991 at targets in Iraq and became the first submarines to fire Tomahawks while submerged.

Several decades of service

Outside of the Gulf War, Tomahawks were used to attack Iraq several more times in the 1990s, against Bosnian targets in 1995, during NATO actions against Yugoslavia, and during the engagements against Afghanistan after 9/11. More recently, Tomahawks saw use in Libya as part of Operation Odyssey Dawn, ISIS in Syria experienced the effects of Tomahawks, and Syrian chemical weapons facilities used by despot Bashar Al-Assad were struck by Tomahawks in 2017. In 2024, both American and British forces launched Tomahawks against Houthi rebels after the rebel group attacked shipping lanes and US-flagged vessels in the Red Sea.

Raytheon reports that the Tomahawk missile could stay in service until at least 2035. By that time, the cruise missile will have eclipsed 50 years of service. With its long range, ability to be launched practically anywhere in the world from above or below the waves, and its accuracy, the Tomahawk has proved literally thousands of times that it is a vital part of the arsenals of the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy.

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Japanese sailors begin Tomahawk training ahead of missile delivery

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force officers train on Tomahawk cruise missiles aboard the USS McCampbell at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, on March 28, 2024. (Alex Wilson/Stars and Stripes)

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — U.S. sailors aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell coached their Japanese counterparts Thursday as Japan prepares to receive its first shipments of Tomahawk cruise missiles sometime next year.

Around 25 Japanese sailors and airmen in the five-day program that ends Friday are the first round of students to learn the inner workings of the Tomahawks and their control systems. The training at Yokosuka, homeport of the 7th Fleet, is one milestone before the U.S. begins delivering the 400 Tomahawk missiles promised to Japan as part of a $2.35 billion deal.

“When the Tomahawks are delivered, we don’t start the training then,” U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel told reporters aboard the McCampbell on Thursday. “We’re ahead of schedule because the delivery is going to be ahead of schedule.”

This week’s training is the first round, with additional rounds scheduled every two months, Emanuel said. Training will also likely continue after the missiles are delivered, he said.

“I expect the Japanese navy to do what our Navy officers do all the time, which is to be constantly training and upgrading skills,” he said the news conference.

Japan in 2022 announced plans to buy as many as 500 Tomahawks with delivery in fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, center, discusses Tomahawk training with U.S. Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force personnel aboard the USS McCampbell at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, on March 28, 2024. (Alex Wilson/Stars and Stripes)

U.S Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, right, and Vice Adm. Fred Kacher, U.S. 7th Fleet commander, discuss with reporters the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force training with Tomahawk missiles aboard the USS McCampbell at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, on March 28, 2024. (Alex Wilson/Stars and Stripes)

In October, the country’s Defense Ministry expressed a desire to fast-track the purchase. The Pentagon on Nov. 17 agreed to the deal, which includes 400 cruise missiles, 14 weapons systems, software, technical support and associated equipment. The first deliveries are expected sometime in fiscal 2025.

The purchase is part of a massive investment Japan has made into its defense. Japan’s Cabinet in December approved its largest-ever defense budget, which amounts to 7.95 trillion yen, or about $55.9 billion.

That investment, Emanuel said, is “100% in weapons and equipment” and is not an investment in more personnel or an attempt to increase the size of the Japan Self-Defense Force.

Emanuel said he is focused on completing the impending deliveries and could not comment on possible further sales.

“Before we even talk about more, we have a responsibility to get the first 400 and we’re on schedule to do that,” he said.

On Thursday, Japanese sailors and airmen worked studiously with U.S. sailors from the Surface Combat Systems Training Command Western Pacific in the McCampbell’s combat information center, the tactical heart of the ship. There, they participated in a simulated missile strike mission, according to Cmdr. Mike Arnold, the training command officer in charge.

“This was the cruise missile commander’s course,” Arnold told Stars and Stripes on Thursday on the McCampbell. The training, he added, covered overall capabilities of the missile, how to deal with casualties, tactics and how to “manipulate and execute the weapons system itself.”

Personnel from another six or seven commands were also in the training, according to Capt. Justin Harts, commodore of Destroyer Squadron 15.

“It gets to be sort of an alphabet soup of commands that are involved in any one of these operations,” he said. “And then there’s a whole host of commands in the States where the Japanese sailors are going to learn their individual jobs.”

The training is successfully increasing Japanese personnel’s capabilities with the missile and doing so “ensures a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific region,” Cmdr. Yuhi Iwamori, spokesman for Japan’s Maritime Staff Office, told Stars and Stripes on Thursday.

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Tomahawk Missiles Will Get Twice As Deadly By Blowing Up Their Own Fuel

When leftover jet fuel becomes a warhead.

A new project could supercharge cruise missiles with several times more bang, and all without changing the warhead.

Ordinary high explosives such as TNT do not require any oxygen. The big molecule simply breaks apart, releasing energy. By contrast, a fuel-air explosion is a form of combustion in which the fuel combines with oxygen in the air and burns more rapidly. As any gearhead will tell you, the fuel-air mixture is all-important for efficient combustion.

Eleven years ago, I experienced a first-hand demonstration of the fuel-air effect. My wife and I were woken at 6:02 am one Sunday morning by the rattling of the roof tiles, as though something immense had just landed on the house. Along with thousands of other Londoners, we did not discover the cause until it came on the news later that morning.  There had been a fire and explosion at an oil storage terminal at Buncefield , more than 20 miles away. The shock that woke us had registered 2.4 on the Richter Scale and was heard as far away as Belgium. Amazingly nobody was killed, though several were injured.

Fuel air explosions are not uncommon, but the one at Buncefield was exceptionally powerful, far more powerful than experts would have been predicted. That's because the fuel vapors had somehow been mixed with the air.

The Buncefield incident puzzled the investigators because the cloud from the 60,000 gallons of oil should not have caused such a strong blast. Normally, vapor will burn rather than explode, giving that characteristic "whoomph" sound, but Buncefield showed all the signs of a huge pressure wave. Cars, including a new Porsche, had been flattened. It turns out, the investigators found, that the key factor was a row of trees by the storage tanks. Burning vapor produces an exhaust like a jet engine, and when the flame front reached the trees, it accelerated to high speed. The irregular branches and twigs made the smooth flow turbulent, mixing the vapor cloud with air so it burned far more rapidly and with much greater force.

The same science that woke me up in 2005 is now being harnessed to make the Tomahawk more deadly. In this case, weapons designers are turning unused fuel into a second warhead via controlled mixing with air.  

Missiles usually have fuel left over when they reach the target. Some missiles have a fuze to ignite this fuel after impact; in other cases, it may burn anyway. For example, when an Exocet missile hit the British destroyer HMS Sheffield during the 1982 Falklands War, the explosive warhead did not go off , but burning rocket propellant started fires that destroyed the ship anyway. And, of course, we cannot forget the importance of burning fuel in the 9/11 attacks .

.css-2l0eat{font-family:UnitedSans,UnitedSans-roboto,UnitedSans-local,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.625rem;line-height:1.2;margin:0rem;padding:0.9rem 1rem 1rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-2l0eat{font-size:1.75rem;line-height:1;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-2l0eat{font-size:1.875rem;line-height:1;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-2l0eat{font-size:2.25rem;line-height:1;}}.css-2l0eat b,.css-2l0eat strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-2l0eat em,.css-2l0eat i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;} As any gearhead will tell you, the fuel-air mixture is all-important for efficient combustion.

The Tomahawk cruise missile is unusual in that it uses turbine powered by a liquid fuel known as JP-10. Normal aviation fuel, JP-5 or Jet-A kerosene, produces about 125,000 BTUs per gallon, 10 percent more than gasoline. JP-10, otherwise called exo-tetrahydrodicyclopentadiene ,  pushes this number up by another 10 percent. It's the best around , but costs around $25 a gallon. 

The Tomahawk Block III is loaded with more than a thousand pounds of JP-10 on launch, giving it a range of more than 800 miles. So, if the target is only 400 miles away, the missile may have some five hundred pounds of fuel left on impact. That leftover could make quite a bang. A rough calculation suggests the total energy content of that much jet fuel is several times greater than the Tomahawk's explosive warhead (approximately a thousand pounds of PBXN-107 plastic-bonded explosive). However, creating such an explosion would mean turning all the fuel into a vapor cloud and detonating it efficiently. And therein lies the trick.

Fuel-Air Fireball

Fuel-air explosives are already used as weapons. The Russians, in particular, have a range of "thermobaric" fuel-air weapons that make ferocious blasts, including the tank-mounted TOS-1 rocket launcher that could destroy eight city blocks with one salvo. U.S. thermobaric weapons are generally based on powdered solid fuel in powdered form, as liquid explosions are a different challenge.

Enter Blaine Asay, formerly of Los Alamos National Laboratory, and his colleagues at Energetic Materials Research and Engineering based in Atchison, Kansas. Under a contract with the U.S. Air Force, Asay, expert in the field of non-shock initiation of explosions, is developing a system that will implode a missile's fuel tank to generate a cloud of vapor and ignite it in a rapidly burning fireball . 

This is quite a challenge, as the fuel-air mixture has to be just right. The precise engineering cannot be done by trial and error, but requires computer modeling with a package called ALE3D (Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian 3D and 2D Multi-Physics Code)—software that allows the simulation of complex high-speed reactions in three-dimensional space.

Asay says he's not at liberty to discuss all the details, but published results show the team succeeded in creating a cloud of JP-10 that burned in 30 milliseconds. In the next phase, the researchers will use their previous results to improve the burning speed by a factor of 100, aiming to hit the jackpot: a detonation in which virtually all the fuel is burned. 

If their research succeeds, then a simple, cheap add-on could make existing cruise missiles far more powerful. The same technology would also enable a new generation of small, liquid-fueled missiles or jet-powered attack drones with a powerful punch. Some of these might not even have warheads in the usual sense, but rather, would simply carry a dual-use fuel tank so that striking power can be traded off against greatly extended range. Otherwise-unarmed scout drones fitted with a fuel-air device could be used as missiles if they encountered a high-value target. As the understanding of fuel-air mixing grows and our ability to model it gets better, such devices will get increasingly powerful.

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