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APRIL 2001
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SUPER-TOMAHAWK PLAN FOR RN SODS
Breakthrough in cruise missile firing technique
A BREAKTHROUGH in technology has shown that Royal Navy submarines will be able to launch a newer and deadlier version of the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile writes Dominic Blake. Experts in submarine weapons have found a way to fire America's new vertical-launch Tactical Tomahawk missile through a torpedo tube, and if their development proposals are successful the weapon could be fitted in ten Royal Navy submarines. HM submarines Splendid, Triumph and Trafalgar are already equipped with the Block III version of the cruise missile and it was first fired in anger by the Royal Navy when Splendid attacked targets in Kosovo in 1999.
HMS Endurance wedges herself into the ice while supplying palaeontologists of the British Antarctic Survey on Seymour Island in the Weddel Sea. The picture was taken by LA(PHOT) Chris Brick from one of Endurance's two Lynx helicopters, showing the second soon after takeoff from the ship. Endurance has now ended her annual Antarctic survey work and is due back in Portsmouth in early May.
After the conflict, 20 missiles were procured to replenish Britain's original stock of (i5 hut the end of Block III production in the USA to make way for the next generation of Block IV Tactical Tomahawk means that no more arc available. Fitting submarines with vertical launchers is challenging and expensive and with no current plans for vertical launchers in the Type 45 destroyers on order for the Royal Navy, Tomahawk's future looked uncertain. But results from studies revealed by the Royal Navy Tomahawk Integrated Project Team have shown that the use of a purpose-built capsule inside the
submarine's torpedo tube will allow the new Block IV missile to he launched safely. As well as securing the stand-off, coercive missile capability called for in the Strategic Defence Review, the breakthrough also puts a much more sophisticated weapon within the grasp of the Submarine Service. Target information for Block III missiles currently needs to he sent to submarines from the Permanent Joint HQ in Northwood before they arc launched but it will be possible to retarget the new weapon in (light. Designers of the Tactical Tomahawk also expect it to be able to loiter and send back battle damage information, a combination which allows a recce of the target, or several missiles to be sent on a mission with the last being used to confirm or complete target destruction. The problem w i t h launching Block IVs from a submarine is that the new missile has a much lighter airframe and is less robust than its Block III predecessor. The capsule system works by preventing rapid water ingress from damaging the missile's tail and reducing shock during launch. Once the Tomahawk has been fired from the torpedo tube the • Turn to back page
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