The submarine USS Annapolis launches a Tomahawk cruise missile off the coast of southern California in 2018. An improved version of this missile will be equipped on US submarines starting in 2024 (Photo: US Navy).
The “sea strike” version of the Tomahawk, a missile typically used as a land attack weapon, will be put into service after October 1, 2024, Bloomberg quoted Captain Jon Hersey, in charge of the Tomahawk program.
They will be deployed on Los Angeles and Virginia-class submarines, which can carry up to 12 Tomahawk land-attack missiles. Some versions of the Virginia-class submarine can carry up to 40 of these missiles.
The latest Tomahawk models will be equipped with a new guidance system that will allow them to “hit moving targets at sea,” Hersey said. The Navy received the first version last year for testing and has since declared it combat-ready.
The US Tomahawk missile first appeared on the battlefield in the early hours of the 1991 Persian Gulf War in Iraq.
The introduction of a new version of the Tomahawk would add capabilities to the US's growing arsenal of anti-ship missiles, alongside submarine-launched torpedoes, to counter China's numerical superiority.
The US Navy also plans to equip surface ships with the above weapons, but surface ships remain more vulnerable to China's land-based and sea-based anti-ship arsenal.
The timeline for deploying Tomahawks to submarines closely aligns with the Pentagon’s plan to deploy thousands of unmanned vehicles in the Indo-Pacific region. The program, called “Replicator,” is expected to be deployed on a large scale between February and August 2025.
In its latest assessment of China’s military power, the Pentagon said the Chinese navy has 370 surface ships and submarines, including more than 140 large surface combatants. The US Navy can deploy 291 ships.
The Chinese navy operates mainly submarines and modern multi-mission ships. It launched its third aircraft carrier last year, the CV-18 Fujian.
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