Why was I not notified of this?
Back in the 1990s it was sort of agreed that between the nuclear subs and the long range aircraft of American carriers, American surface warships no longer needed long range (over the horizon) anti-ship missiles. So in the late 1990s the U.S. stopped building warships that could fire Harpoon (the U.S. long range anti-ship missile) and took Harpoon off some ships that already had them.
By the early 2030s, Strategypage writes, we won't have any surface ships with Harpoon.
Oh but no worries:
But at the moment the navy brass considers this a non-problem and points out that it is working on a new long range anti-ship missile for surface ships and it should be ready in 10-15 years. Meanwhile, ships have some anti-aircraft missiles that can be fired at enemy ships, but only those that can be detected by surface radar (up to about 28 kilometers away). This is sufficient for coastal operations, and if there is threat of a major war (as with China), some U.S. ships could be equipped with encapsulated Harpoons within a few months.
Yeah, weapons development will be smooth and defense spending will allow this.
In an age when the Navy struggles for numbers and the Chinese navy is getting bigger and better armed and trained, one would think that anti-ship missiles for our surface ships wouldn't be considered a luxury. Really, we'll always have submarines and aircraft available to shoot anti-ship missiles for the surface ships? How many subs are forward deployed in the western Pacific? Have our admirals suddenly gotten confident that they can sail our carriers close to Chinese land-based aircraft and missiles to provide that air support?
We don't mind making Chinese problems simpler by letting them know our surface ships are defanged when over the horizon?
And in what world is it considered okay that we could get Harpoons on some of our ships in a few months? Are we really assuming that no campaign that lasts less than that really counts? We really think that we could hang back for three months while we arm our surface ships? Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Singapore surely won't mind hanging on until then?
Or do we think we can do fine making do with those non-surface ships that have long-range anti-ship capabilities? Our ships can just bat down enemy long-range missiles with our own missiles and wait for aircraft or subs to sink the offending enemy ship? Or do we charge in hoping to catch a visual so we can use gunfire and Standard anti-aircraft missiles in an anti-ship role?
This is shocking to me. I follow naval matters. I belong to the Naval Institute, and have for more than a couple decades. I don't remember reading anything about this. I guess mentions of the legacy Harpoons led me to assume that we still added them to the fleet's new ships. I knew we weren't putting them on the new littoral combat ship (LCS), but thought that was a size consideration. And maybe the mission modules for surface warfare would have them, I figured.
Really, one of the reasons I haven't had near-term worries about carrier vulnerability is that the proliferation of anti-ship missiles in our fleet (namely the Harpoon) has made our entire fleet an anti-ship weapon. Until Harpoon, our offensive power was concentrated in our carrier air wings with other vessels restricted to protecting the carriers. But what I thought I knew was wrong. Harpoons are departing the fleet and only some of our surface warfare officers are worried about that.
This should not be a problem:
A growing number of American surface warfare officers want an encapsulated version of Harpoon that can be fired from the vertical launch cells that carry all of missiles in American warships. That already exists and is sold as an export item.
Give them their Goddamn Harpoons back.
Do we just assume we will always control the seas, and so don't need proven weapons to actually sink enemy ships trying to deny us that control? Why do we assume enemies will be so cooperative?
