Can kill almost anything, this the u.s
navy's most important missile. The u.s navy in late january 2019
confirmed the designation of its newest
cruise missile in the process clarifying
its long-term plan for arming its
growing fleet of warships. The plan heavily leans on one missile in
particular it's the SM-6 an
anti-aircraft weapon that quickly is
evolving to perform almost every role
the navy assigns to a missile. The navy dubbed the newest version of
the venerable tomahawk cruise missile
that block V model.
There are two separate variants of the
block B missile one with an anti-ship
warhead and another with a warhead the
navy optimized for striking targets on
land. Raytheon's tomahawk has been the subject
of controversy in Washington DC in order
to save money the Obama administration
wanted to pause production of the
long-range missile which since the 1980s
has been the navy's main weapon for
striking land targets from the sea. But it's the less well-known SM-6 which
also is a raytheon product that could
dominate the navy's planning.
Of the 10 major missiles that armed the
navy's 285 in growing surface ships and
submarines. Only the SM-6 is capable of
striking targets at sea in the air and
at the edge of the atmosphere. The navy plans to buy 1800 SM-6s through
2026 at a total cost of 6.4 billion
dollars. The missile arms certain destroyers and
cruisers equipped with the aegis radar
system. As of late 2018 the us fleet included 38 Aegis warships that are compatible with
the missile defense interceptors such as
the SM-6.
The navy wants to grow that number to 41
in 2019. Only the SM-6 can sink ships shoot down
planes and intercept ballistic missiles
and with a few modifications the SM-6
also could target enemy ground forces
and even submarines. The SM-6 is a frankenstein's monster
that features components raytheon
borrowed from other missile types. It combines the seeker and blast warhead
of an advanced medium-range air-to-air
missile in the airframe of the navy's
older SM-2 surface-to-air
missile. When the SM-6 block i first
became operational in 2013 its main
mission was shooting down aircraft and
cruise missiles. The navy further tweaked the missile
sensor producing the block ia version.
In a 2016 test an SM-6 block ia struck a
target on the ocean's surface. Now the SM-6 also is an anti-ship
missile, the navy also could produce an
anti-submarine version of the missile by
replacing the warhead with a torpedo
that would detach from the rocket body
similar to what the sea service's
defunct asrock missile did during the
cold war.
There's just one mission an SM-6 cannot
perform without radical modification. Missile seekers work differently in the
air than they do in the vacuum of space. Air friction requires designers to add a
cover atop the seeker of a missile
that's supposed to function within the
atmosphere. The cover must be invisible
to the weapons sensor, a requirement that
limits the variety of materials
developers can use in to a great extent
drives sensor design.
The open versus closed seeker dichotomy
explains why the navy uses closed seeker SM-2s and SM-6s for interceptions in the
atmosphere and special open seeker -3s
for interceptions above the atmosphere. Modifying an SM-6 to hit ballistic
missiles in space pretty much would make
it an SM-3. While that distinction might seem
semantic it delineates the theoretical
limits of the basic SM-6 design.
Essentially the SM-6 with just a few
modifications can do practically
everything that hit targets in space. The Tomahawk and its controversies might
make headlines but as the u.s navy
re-arms for high-tech warfare the SM-6
is the missile to watch.
