Warfare Has Never Had Weapon Like Navy's Tomahawk Missile

Many new weapons will be tried in combat for the first time in war with Iraq, and one of the newest concepts of all is the U.S. Navy's Tomahawk Cruise Missile.

Never in the history of warfare has anyone used a robot airplane like the Tomahawk that guides itself to its target by following the contours of the ground. Although the Tomahawk has been tested, it has never been fired in combat. It's as new to warfare as the tank was in World War I.

The Tomahawk is designed to cruise pilotless at low altitudes, thus avoiding radar. One of its missions is to knock out anti-aircraft missile sites and radar systems before manned aircraft is sent in. It may be the first weapon fired in the Persian Gulf conflict if fighting occurs.

The Boeing Co. began building the nation's first cruise missile a decade ago, but the Tomahawk versions are built by General Dynamics-Convair and McDonnell Douglas.

The Boeing version was air launched and could carry only nuclear weapons, while the Tomahawk is sea-launched and can carry conventional explosives.

The nuclear Tomahawk has more than twice the cruising range of the conventional missile because its deadly nuclear payload is lighter than a 1,000-pound conventional bomb.

Weapons designers and defense analysts are waiting and wondering whether this ultra-high tech computerized drone will work and how well.

The cruise missile costs between $1 million and $2.6 million each, depending on whether the costs of the launcher and research and development are included. They are used only once.

Spending that much money on a weapon that delivers only one 1,000-pound bomb is questionable, said retired Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll, deputy director of the Center for Defense Information, a think tank often critical of U.S. defense policies.

By itself, a 1000-pound bomb packs a wallop, but not enough to affect a well-hardened target like a concrete bunker unless it's a direct hit. A bomber can carry many 1,000-pound bombs at one time and will usually blanket a target with them. Those bombs cost $1,500 each.

``I dropped a lot of bombs in my time, and if you have only one 1,000-pound bomb, unless you hit damn close to what you want to knock out, you are not doing the job,'' said Carroll, who flew combat missions for the Navy in the Korean war.

``With a Tomahawk, you only get one bang per plane,' he said.

But Bob Holsapple, chief spokesman for the Navy's cruise missile program, argues that a cruise missile is a bargain compared to the cost of losing a $50 million A-6 Navy bomber with its human crew members.

``If one of those airplanes is shot down at $50 million a copy, we could buy 50 cruise missiles, not even counting the saving of air crews' lives,'' he said.

One 1,000-pound bomb can do the job required because the Tomahawk is so accurate it can split the goal posts on a football field from its maximum range of 700 miles, Holsapple said. It would only be used against high-priority targets, anti-aircraft installations and command and control centers, he said.

The cigar-shaped device is launched from a ship like a missile, or from a submarine like a torpedo. When it reaches an altitude of 2,000 feet, the 18-foot long missile becomes an airplane by sprouting 4-foot wings and a tail from its 21-inch diameter fuselage. It drops its rocket booster and turns on its jet engines, a process that takes about 12 seconds.

It then flies like an airplane at a speed of around 500 mph, often lower than 100 feet to avoid radar. It finds its way to its destination using a radar system pointed at the ground. In the nose is a computer packed with data that tells the guidance system what the ground should look like. The data is supplied by spy planes and satellites, and is loaded onto computer disks by technicians in Norfolk, Va., and Honolulu. The data is transmitted to combat ships by radio, and new targeting information can be available to a missile within hours after photos are taken, Holsapple said.

Like many complex new defense systems, the Tomahawk was plagued by delays and performance problems. Many of the missiles failed during the first 12 seconds after launch because their wings wouldn't fan out or the jet engines wouldn't work. In some cases they flew off course, as happened in December 1985 when a Tomahawk fired from a nuclear submarine in the Gulf of Mexico went miles off course and landed by parachute in woods near Freeport, Fla.

Holsapple said reliability has improved since then, and about 90 percent of the test missiles now reach their target. However, that is in test conditions. The General Accounting Office recently reported that before launching test Tomahawk missiles, Navy officials telephoned the test range to ask about the weather at the target site. ``This is an implausible method of data collection in wartime,'' the GAO said.

In the Persian Gulf, the Tomahawk will have to work over deserts with shifting sands and sandstorms. Holsapple said they will work in times of low visibility, although a severe sandstorm could throw them off.

There are four types of Tomahawk missiles and they have different guidance systems. The most complex guidance system is designed to carry conventional bombs. The conventional bomb must be delivered on target - as Carroll said - while a nuclear weapon needs simply to explode near its target to do its job.

The Navy also has Tomahawk missiles designed to hit ships, but they have a guidance system designed to fly only over water in search of a targeted vessel.

Tomahawks are in short supply and there isn't much capacity to make more quickly. Holsapple said the Navy's contractors could just about double the production of Tomahawks in an emergency, but that would produce only 40 missiles a month.

The Navy now has about 1,000 conventional Tomahawks. More than 800 are armed with Bullpup 1,000-pound bombs. Fewer than 200 are armed with a different warhead containing ``bomblets,'' meaning that each missile can scatter 166 explosive devices each about the size of two hand grenades. Holsapple said they would be dropped on targets such as airplanes. The bomblet cruise missiles would literally fly around an airfield destroying planes on the ground, he said.

There are about 350 nuclear Tomahawks in existence and some are believed to be in the Gulf. There are 560 anti-ship missiles.

The organization Greenpeace has estimated that 83 of the nation's nuclear-armed Tomahawks are now deployed in the Persian Gulf, each carrying a warhead larger than the one that destroyed Hiroshima in World War II.

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TOMAHAWK CRUISE MISSILE

The cruise is one U.S. method for delivering nuclear weapons, although it is also capable of carrying conventional explosives.

Sources: USNI Military Database, Jane's Weapons Systems

Speed: 500-550 mph .

Length: 20 feet .

Weight: 3,200 pounds .

Warhead: Nuclear (5 to 200 kiloton) .

Conventional (250 or 1,000 .

pounds high explosive) .

Range: 1,500 miles nuclear land attack, .

700 miles conventional land attack, .

300 miles conventional anti-ship. .

1. Launch: Solid rocket boost launches missile from battleship, cruiser, destroyer or attack submarine. Booster falls off and jet engine ignites.

2. Guidance: Follows programmed route, comparing computerized map to terrain. Flies at low altitude.

3. Target: Conventional missile can supposedly split a goal post.