Surface warfare is in the news as navies tackle pirates off the Somali coast. The impact of piracy reflects the importance of sea lanes to a global economy, and navies are reequipping to deal with high- and low-level threats. One result is the emergence of a variety of antiship missiles. DTI has covered Chinese, Russian and Indian developments, but the rest of the world is also responding to changing threats.

At the U.S. Navy League exhibition in Washington this month, Raytheon Missile Systems will unveil an upgrade to the BGM/UGM-109E Tomahawk Block IV land-attack cruise missile that will make it a multirole weapon capable of hitting moving ships. The package has four elements: An active electronically scanned array, millimeter-wave seeker provides target acquisition and homing; a passive electronic surveillance system is for long-range acquisition and identification; the 1,000-lb. blast-fragmentation warhead is replaced by a shaped charge; and the two-way data link gets more bandwidth.

The missile is designed to kill or disable large, hardened warships in difficult environments such as littoral waters, over a greater range than Boeing’s Harpoon/Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM), the U.S. Navy’s standard antiship missile. The Raytheon warhead is twice as large as SLAM’s, and the 900-naut.-mi. range is six times greater. This is not an antipirate weapon, and it is not hard to guess which navy is the most likely target.

The new Tomahawk is designed for networked operations. It would receive targeting data acquired by manned or unmanned aircraft or satellites monitoring the target fleet, and could transmit radar imagery to a shadowing aircraft for final identification of a target. Multiple coordinated missile attacks would overwhelm defenses. One scenario has a Tomahawk popping up to image and identify a target and updating missiles below the horizon.

Raytheon claims that the antiship Tomahawk could be developed within 36 months of a go-ahead decision. They would be produced by modifying Block IV missiles as they cycle through recertification programs.

Lighter missiles are also getting attention. MBDA’s Mk2 series Marte is smaller and lighter than the Mk1, which was developed in the 1980s for Italian navy helicopters. The Mk2 has a launch weight of 324 kg. (713 lb.), so a helicopter in the Super Lynx class can carry two. It is more maneuverable and has a 30-km. (18-mi.) range, thanks to an improved solid-propellant sustainer rocket. With a 74-kg. semi-piercing incendiary warhead, loaded with 27 kg. of insensitive explosive, it can destroy a 600-ton vessel, disable a 1,500-ton corvette or light frigate and deliver a serious blow to a 3,000-ton frigate.

The Mk2S airborne version completed qualification on AW101 and NFH90 helicopters. MBDA carried out qualification testing of the Mk2N, for small warships, and the weapon has been ordered by the UAE navy to equip its new Ghannata-class attack boats (DTI April, p. 16). The weapon may also be ordered for UAE naval helicopters.

Marte’s I-band radar seeker is designed to operate in cluttered coastal environments. There is also the option to perform a final anti-CIWS (close-in weapon system) attack maneuver, with spiral turns of decreasing range to defeat tracking. MBDA is working on improvements, including a midcourse guidance system with integrated INS/GPS. Work has also been carried out on the installation of a data link for man-in-the-loop and strike-damage-assessment modes.

Team Complex Weapons (Team CW), a group of contractors working on missile development with the U.K. Defense Ministry, was launched at last year’s Farnborough air show. With £74 million ($108 million) of funding for the first year, and an initial horizon of three years, a development agreement was finalized by the ministry and partners MBDA (UK), Thales UK, Qinetiq and Roxel. Six guided-weapon projects are in the works: Storm Shadow Enhancement, an Anglo-French collaboration; the Future Local Area Air Defense System to replace the U.K.’s naval Sea Wolf and land-based Rapier surface-to-air missiles (SAMs); assessment of capabilities in the 50-kg. air-delivered munitions area; Fire Shadow loitering munition; and light and heavy versions of the Future Antiship Guided Weapon (FASGW).

The light version of FASGW is a 15-20-kg. weapon for helicopters. It is based on the Starstreak hypervelocity SAM from Thales, which is in service with the British Army. The target sets for FASGW-light are small boats, light armored areas and, possibly, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).