Showtime 100_MatrixForum -> RE: LRASM (1/17/2014 6:23:02 PM)
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ORIGINAL: IWS The USN seems to have stopped adding harpoons to its new ships (e.g. Flight IIa Burkes). I've been wondering about that-- seems counter-intuitive. Everyone and their brother is using harpoons mounted on just about everything. Speculatively, they may be thinking 4 or 8 subsonic harpoons just won't get through 1st or 2nd world air defense + point defense anymore. In addition to harpoon's limited range. But the US has lots of Standard Missiles. Though those may not sink a ship, they have a good chance of getting a mission kill under the same circumstances. A "free Brahmos", as it were. But the (subsonic) LRASM has defensive ECM, which helps quite a bit The (pending) VLS version of the C (jammer) variant of the AGM-160 MALD could help too, especially since 4 of them can fit in a single VLS tube. The USN's primary offensive ASuW weapons are submarines and aircraft, as far as I'm aware. I know that some (all? most?) Standards can be used in an anti-shipping role. During Operation Praying Mantis, the USS Simpson (FFG-56) and the USS Wainwright (CG-28) fired RIM-66 and RIM-67s at the Iranian Kaman-class fast attack craft Joshan, which destroyed its superstructure (although it didn't immediately sink). It doesn't take much of a warhead to destroy radars and mission-kill ships. I think that the USN has decided that point defense is either good enough or will soon be good enough that the benefits of hypersonic long-range SSMs outweigh the drawbacks; they've decided that the LRASM is better off as a stealthy subsonic missile with DECM instead of being super/hypersonic but having a larger RCS, greater thermal signature, and less ability to maneuver. While I admit that cancelling the supersonic LRASM was a disappointment to me (because, c'mon, missiles are REALLY COOL), I can see why it makes sense. The USN doesn't suffer as much from the lack of long-range SSMs as navies without the same number of air and submarine assets do.
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