2USARPAC8thTheaterSustainment By Kris Osborn, President, Warrior (Washington) The US Army is quickly surging toward a combat era wherein it can deploy mobile hypersonic missile batteries at key strategic locations throughout the Pacific such as the Philippines, a development which enables the service to attack targets across the region at 5-times the speed of sound. As part of this weapons expansion, the US Army Pacific is working with the Navy to develop new maneuver tactics and Concepts of Operation to support a fast-increasing number of mobile land-fired weapons systems, such as the Typhon Mid-Range-Capability missile system recently sent to Philippines. "It's a hypersonic battery that's capable of delivering a multiple type of weapon system," Maj. Gen. Gavin Gardner, Commanding General, 8th-Theater Sustainment Command, US Army Pacific, told Warrior in a recent interview. In development for several years, the Army's Typhon MRC is a substantial and highly impactful new weapons system, capable of firing the Army's emerging Precision Strike Missile as well as land-fired variants of the SM-6 and Tomahawk missile. Now, the "battery" is also said to be capable of integrating "hypersonic" weapons as well, a capability of great tactical and operational significance. Referring to US PACOM Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo's emphasis upon "theater systemic bandwidth," Gardner explained how the advent of new innovations generates a need to integrate new tactics. A mobile, hypersonic-capable land-fired missile system such as the Typhon enables new abilities for commanders to target moving ships at sea, aircraft or land targets over water and integrate a new land-based, multi-domain attack system. "How do you keep that thing in the fight? How do you get the next round of missiles to it? How do you keep it maintained? How do you operationally maneuver it? " Gardner said, adding that US Army Pacific is working with the Navy on evolving new tactics related to the weapon through existing Multi-Domain Task Forces. A maneuverable hypersonic-capable weapon, as opposed to a fix-site attack location, enhances survivability and enables a new sphere of attack options . "That's a new capability for our Army and so we're constantly evolving the tactics, techniques and procedures on how to do those things to really give operational maneuver to the commander so that they can deliver the fires and effects at the time and place of our choosing," Gardner said. Moving the Typhon MRC to the Philippines brings the Army a medium-range, precision-guided land-fired cruise missile capable of hitting maritime targets from coastal positions. The Typhon is both long-range and precision guided, and Typhons now stationed in the Northern Philippines can hold ocean areas at risk as far away as 1,200 miles. This is extremely significant, given that the Chinese coastline is roughly 1,854 miles from the Philippines, therefore the Typhon can cover two-thirds of the ocean area between the two countries with highly-precise, ship-sinking ground fires. “The most well-known of the capabilities that we have fielded in the last couple years are the medium range capability, the Typhon missile, That is a long range ground fires element that is able to sink ships, hit land targets at long ranges and is mobile and survivable,” Maj. Gen. Jeff VanAntwerp, Operations Officer, U.S. Army Pacific, recently told reporters last month. Kris Osborn [https://warriormaven.com/author/krisosborn] is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
