Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM)
Myself and others have suggested that it might be a good idea to equip US Coast Guard cutters with anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs).
- Distributed Lethality–CIMSEC
- LRASM Topside Launchers
- WHY THE COAST GUARD NEEDS LRASM IN PEACETIME–CIMSEC
- “AUGMENT NAVAL FORCE STRUCTURE BY UPGUNNING THE COAST GUARD”–CIMSEC
- Rebuttal to ““U.S. Coast Guard’s VADM Linda Fagan (Pacific Command) answers why the Large Coast Guard Cutters Do Not Up-Arm”
- “Distribute Lethality to the Cutters”–USNI Proceedings
While I think cutters should be fitted for launchers of at least eight ASCMs, so that in wartime they might swamp the defenses of an enemy combatant with a relatively robust air defense, they don’t need to carry that many all the time. (The new FFGs will carry up to 16 ASCMs.) For defense against a possible terrorist attack using a medium to large ship, two LRASM, AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, with their large warhead and target selectivity, would probably suffice. For sensitive international peacetime missions, they might need or want to carry none at all.
Certainly not everyone agrees, “U.S. Coast Guard’s VADM Linda Fagan (Pacific Command) answers why the Large Coast Guard Cutters Do Not Up-Arm” by Peter Ong, but there may be another reason the idea has not been accepted.
A Defense News report has a revealing quote,
“We need about 1,000 to 1,200 [long-range anti-ship missiles] if you believe the unclassified wargames,” Gallagher adding, noting the U.S. currently has less than 250 in its inventory.
That may only refer to the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, but there may be a shortage of anti-ship missiles. That could explain a lot, including why no ASCMs on cutters; why no ASCM armed surface combatants; why so slow to arm LCS with cruise missiles, why many Destroyers apparently have no ASCMs. DOD is going to fill their highest priority needs first.
The US Navy has about 110 surface combatants (cruisers, destroyers, and LCS). If each were armed with 8 ASCMs that would require 880. Submarines may carry a relatively small number of ASCMS, but ships are not the primary users of ASCMs. Aircraft have that role.
Each Air Force B-1Bs can carry up to 24 LRASMs. LRASM and NSM are also to be carried by Navy F/A-18s and Air Force, Navy, and Marine F-35, and by P-8 Maritime Patrol Aircraft. A fully loaded Aircraft Carrier might require well over a hundred missiles.
Until recently, ASCM procurement rates have been modest. Apparently, more missiles are coming.
The rapid consumption of high-tech munitions in Ukraine has apparently convinced many we need deeper magazines.
The Pentagon’s $170 billion procurement budget request ― touted as the largest ever ― would use a new “large lot procurement pilot” strategy to maximize production capacity for several munitions used across the services: Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range (JASSM-ER) and Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) ― and the Raytheon Technologies-made RIM-174 Standard Missile (SM-6), AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AAMRAM).
Though not in the pilot program, the Pentagon is also using multiyear contracting to buy roughly 103 Naval Strike Missiles at $250 million. The Marine Corps’ new, low-signature Marine Littoral Regiments and their Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System are slated for 90 of the ground-based missiles, which Raytheon manufactures.
Procuring 103 missiles over five years still looks like a pretty slow pace to me, considering China is apparently threatening to attack Taiwan in 2027 and we have a capacity for producing hundreds of missiles per year. If Taiwan is attacked in 2027, it will be a target rich environment and those missiles in the out years will be too late.
In 2021 Defense News reported, there is no production bottleneck delaying the rapid deployment of large numbers of Naval Strike Missiles (NSM).
“Demand is not an issue. If they suddenly come out and they say we need 200 a year, 300 a year, 500 a year, we can do that,” Schreiber added.
Lockheed is doubling their production capacity.
Perhaps when magazines are filled, the question of missiles for cutters will be reconsidered.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
How many Harpoons do we still have in inventory? I imagine quite a few. Perhaps they could be upgraded/refurbished and still be used?
As we saw in Ukraine, missiles of roughly equivalent capability to Harpoon can still be useful.
Also, the Tomahawk Maritime Strike Variant is coming online and there is also the SM6 which has an anti-surface mode.
For the CG, the answer might be to equip with Harpoons until which time there are enough NSMs to go around.
The only two advantages the NSM has over the newest Harpoons are: stealth shaping and lighter weight. The Harpoon Block II+ (RGM-84Q-4) has just as good range, a bigger warhead, and advanced EW systems. Arming with Harpoon would not be disadvantageous vs. NSM, as long as it’s the newest version.
From what I have heard, the latest versions have been sold to Allies, but the USN has not bought any.
That is correct for new-build, but the Navy has such a stockpile of older versions, it is buying upgrade kits, rather than new-build missiles:
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2019/01/u-s-navy-exercises-option-for-79-harpoon-block-ii-upgrade-kits/
We need the right sensors and guidance on top of something we make a lot of and will keep making in quantity. GMLRS/ER-GMLRS-GSDB
For years, it has been more sexy for lawmakers to authorize capital assets like ships and planes as opposed to their ordnance. It has taken a hot war in Europe for us to see the value in the amount of munitions one can purchase for the cost of 1 Burke Flight III DDG. Hopefully we’re finally awaking to the reality that hulls and subs without the full quantity of missiles AT ALL TIMES is a disaster which we can never recover from once the shooting starts.
We should be building AShM in their thousands and fitting them to everything that floats.
I agree but do we have the production capacity and supply chain to do that?
No we don’t. We need to get one in place.
The more we build, the more the price will come down.
We can produce 500 to a 1000 for the cost of one DDG.
Amen!
No problem at all for the NSM and capacity for LRASM & JASSM-ER has doubled but most of it went for JASSM-ER. Some of that could be converted to LRASM.
This is dramatically underselling the problem. The peacetime production rate for LRASM and NSM needs to be something like a thousand missiles a year each with plans in place to dramatically accelerate production in wartime. We’ll go through thousands in the opening days of the war, and will probably continue to shoot thousands a month through most of the war based on past experience (e.g., British torpedo expenditure in the Falklands war). We simply don’t have the numbers to arm cutters with modern missiles, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
That said, there are a fair number of old Harpoons in storage, so tossing 8-packs on larger cutters shouldn’t be a problem. They’re not going to cut it against a prepared modern warship (and before someone brings up Moskva, the only plausible explanation is human error, both in terms of self defense and damage control), but they could still be useful in a larger salvo and will work fine against anything else including the large commercial vessels you’re also concerned about. I’d still want them fully loaded on ships performing long range missions due to the risk of the situation changing while they’re underway, but cutters sticking closer to port could come back quickly enough to mitigate the risk of a reduced load.
Assuming of course there are additional missiles available to load. Looks like right now not only is it impossible to reload underway, looks like there really are no reloads available, because we have not even filled the magazines in the first place.
I should have been more clear. I was specifically talking about USCG cutters operating near their home ports. Exactly enough Harpoons would be kept in port to fully load them, so they could rush back to port and load there when needed. We should have enough old Harpoons available to provide a single full magazine to the cutters, and extras are unnecessary since we can fly reloads to Coast Guard bases easily enough if a cutter launches missiles and survives.
The “taxpayer advocates” won’t let that happen, unfortunately. We should be procuring about 1,000 missiles a year, and firing a couple hundred in training; but that’s a waste of money.
How many NSM can we produce per year?
I thought the production rate was fairly low (though I’d like to be wrong about that.
The nice thing aboout LRASM and JASSM is you have most parts in common. We should be able to pivot between Naval and Land based needs to keep the line on the high end of performance. We should really find more jobs the missile can do and adapt it. Same with GMLRS. Makes me wonder about AARGM-ER and JSM. Fits in the same critical platform location. Could one or the other be effectively tasked for both jobs?
Maybe SeaRAM launchers? Not as effective or long-range, but good for air defense and small vessels.