By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
US Army Pacific is fast-tracking highly networked, precise land fired weapons able to detect and destroy enemy warships from shore, as part of its high-speed push to refine tactics and employ emerging technologies while training with its Multi-domain Task Forces.
Roughly one fourth of the Army is now assigned to the Pacific, and the service is breaking through with multi domain networking and precision weapons attack. Medium and even long-range precision guided missiles can be fired from land to destroy enemy ships, especially when supported by high-speed networking transmissions from space, air or surface nodes.
Typhon Missile to Philippines
In support of this effort to massively improve the Army’s ability to destroy enemy targets at sea, the service has moved its Mid-Range-Capability Typhon Missile System to the Pacific, 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.
Interestingly, the Typhon system integrates several combat-tested weapons currently fired by US Navy surface warships such as the Tomahawk Missile and SM-6. This is quite significant, given that ship-fired Tomahawks can travel distances up to 900 miles and the Navy’s SM-6 is increasingly able to track and hit moving targets. A newer, more “tactical” variant of the Tomahawk is also capable of changing course in flight to hit moving targets. This means an approaching Chinese amphibious attack on the Philippines would be extremely vulnerable to US Army ground-fired attack weapons such as the Typhon, a contingency which might help with deterrence efforts and explain why the missile system is currently stationed in the Northern Philippines. The Army is also configuring its land-fired HIMARS rocket systems to develop increased “ship sinking” capability, Antwerp said. The recently tested and successfully developed Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) is also being configured with a special ship-targeting seeker to be available for additional land-to-sea attack capability.
Army Multi-Domain Task Force
Many of the weapons systems are being prepared for operations through the use of the Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force, units which integrate surface, land and air attack tactics in what is becoming a newer, more modern iteration of traditional Combined Arms Maneuver. There is still a place for traditional Combined Arms Maneuver, as evidenced in Ukraine, where coordinated rocket and artillery fire enable soldiers to maneuver and close with the enemy against weakened defenses. Overwhelmingly, however, the Army is advancing quickly with more modern kinds of high-speed Combined Arms Maneuver that is faster, AI-enabled, saturated with unmanned systems and of course increasingly multi-domain.
Shore to ship attack can be massively fortified and expedited by advanced, multi-domain networking wherein aerial nodes, space communications and US Navy surface sensors are able to quickly share a common operating picture and security transmit target information across otherwise disaggregated portions of an active theater of war. What this means is that advanced networking and AI-empowered information management can massively accelerate the speed and accuracy of attack by supporting human decision-making in milliseconds.
“We are rapidly improving our ability out here in the Indo-Pacific in the ability of our joint force to move data quickly and to move it between multiple enclaves. Ultimately what that starts to provide us is the opportunity to apply advanced tools such as AI to improve our workflows. Our network is improving fairly rapidly,” VanAntwerp said.
Part of these modern adjustments include things such as the rapid and ubiquitous integration of increasingly significant domains such as EW, cyber and the electromagnetic spectrum. This transition is also fortified by faster ground-space coordination, paradigm-changing multi-node networking technology across otherwise disparate transport layers and growing applications of AI able to bounce incoming sensor information off a vast database to organize threat details and perform discernments, threat identifications and time-sensitive analysis.
EW Focus
Antwerp stressed EW as a growing method of warfare wherein communications, RF signatures and electronic guidance systems can be jammed, targeting can be “thrown off course” and soldiers can unwittingly give away their position by emitting an electronic signature.
“We are increasingly conscious of our electronic signatures and how we are able to be observed, detected…. from the tactical level all the way up to the operational and high operational. We need to be able to manage our emissions control and to be able to see and understand the spectrum just like we see and understand physical terrain. It’s just become that important,” VanAntwerp explained.
As part of this growing recognition of “electronic footprint” variables, soldiers are learning to adapt to space and land-generated EW systems. This may mean defensive “jamming” of the guidance mechanism of an incoming enemy missile or offensive electromagnetic disruption directed at enemy communications.
“A variety of space controlled EW systems and conventional EW systems, all which can be operated from the land, provide us really great sensing and effects across both non-kinetics and kinetics,” VanAntwerp said. “If you don’t understand the electromagnetic spectrum, one, you’re not going to be survivable, and two, your weapons aren’t going to be survivable and you’re not going to be able to affect your enemy.”
Kris Osborn 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
