Navy’s new missile blows something up
November 17th, 2009 | Maritime operations Science and technology SEALs Ships The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
The cruiser Cape St. George fired an earlier version of the Tomahawk land attack missile in 2003. The Navy says its late-model Block IV is the best one yet // IS1 Kenneth Moll / Navy
Oh, to have been crouching in the mud with the U.S. and British special operators earlier this month when they called in a “time-critical strike” from the cruiser Princeton. It was just an exercise, according to a Navy announcement, but it still must’ve been pretty cool to see them dial in the thunder with their Precision Strike Suite – Special Operations Forces gear (known, of course, as “piss-off” in the teams) and then have that missile sky down and explode.
The thunder in question was provided by the long-awaited Block IV Tomahawk land-attack missile, which is the latest and smartest version of the classic weapon we all remember from “Red Storm Rising.”
“As the only network-enabled, land attack weapon, Tomahawk can re-target, loiter, or provide last minute weapons coverage to deployed forces from on-station naval combatants,” said its program manager, Capt. Dave Davison.
Still to come: Scoop Deck has been told that the Block IV’s improved ability to find and see targets could return anti-ship capability to the Tomahawk family, after the purpose-built ship-killing variant was withdrawn in 1995. We’re looking forward to seeing video of that test, if it happens.