What exotic Chinese threat does LRASM address? The Klub/Sizzler?
Lockheed Snags DARPA Anti-Ship Missile Award
Jul 2, 2009
By Amy Butler and Graham Warwick
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control has won one of two awards from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to study and design a Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM).
DARPA received nine proposals, and one more award is expected in the next 60 days, according to an agency official. Boeing, Raytheon and ATK also submitted proposals.
LRASM is an unconventional DARPA effort; the agency typically focuses on technology that is not readily in hand. However, the Navy requested DARPA’s help in fielding LRASM in response to a need to protect ships in the Pacific against a perceived threat from an exotic anti-ship system in development in China. The goal of the program is to develop a weapon that can quickly transition into operational use by the Navy. LRASM must be mated with the Navy’s Vertical Launch System, which is already installed on cruisers and destroyers in the fleet.
By: jessmo24 - 14th November 2010 at 07:07
That would have to be done in any case. The average international anti-ship missile now tends towards being twice as heavy, twice as fast, with twice the warhead weight of the Harpoon. The new anti-ship Tomahawk upgrade is still a while away (if ever), is neither terribly LO nor terribly fast, and a stop-gap in any case. Fast anti-ship and fast land attack are different sides of the same coin.
Why is it so difficult to make a Anti-ship tommy? Just take out some of the ordnance load and put a IR + radar seeker in there.
By: jessmo24 - 14th November 2010 at 07:03
DARPA’s New Missile Goes To Next Stage
Posted by Bill Sweetman at 11/12/2010 8:19 AM CST
Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $157 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract for a full-up demonstration of a Long Range Anti Ship Missile (LRASM), to be fired from Navy warships (known as LRASM-B). It also expects a similar contract for an air-launched system, LRASM-A, according to Reuters: until now, two Lockheed Martin groups had been viewed as competitors for a single demonstration contract.
On the surface, LRASM does not look like a DARPA program. It may not involve radical airframe and propulsion technology (the air-launched version may be a modified JASSM) and it is a mainstream mission. However, what makes LRASM “DARPA-hard” – the catchphrase for a challenge on the verge of impossibility – may reside in the guidance and navigation system.
The LRASM-B will be sized for a vertical launch. Contract language suggests that it will have a ramjet sustainer from Pratt & Whitney, based on “residual” assets from an unidentified program. (Here is a fascinating history of Navy ramjet missiles.)
By: djcross - 13th November 2010 at 16:36
There are a couple complete RATTLRS airframes sitting in the assembly building, but they are without engines. It seems neither Rolls Royce Liberty Works nor Williams are able to build a small turbojet that does not self-destruct.
By: Jonesy - 13th November 2010 at 16:16
Fasthawk evolved into RATTLRS (pic). There was talk of RATTLRS being cancelled a few months back?.
The LRASM requirement appears to specify an ability to work outside of significant targetting sensor support and the ability to discriminate between legitimate targets and non-combattants in the terminal phase. Those factors do not lend themselves easily to a very high velocity aeroballistic weapon.
Its also go to be said that high-velocity aeroballistics aren’t really all that difficult targets for defending area SAMs and you would not anticipate naval S-300’s and the derivations thereof to have too many issues in countering weapons of that type.
By: ppp - 13th November 2010 at 15:36
Fasthawk / HyStrike?
By: mabie - 13th November 2010 at 14:32
I agree its about time a new anti-shipping missile is developed, capitalizing on progress made since Tomahawk and Harpoon made their respective debuts.
By: Distiller - 13th November 2010 at 09:42
That would have to be done in any case. The average international anti-ship missile now tends towards being twice as heavy, twice as fast, with twice the warhead weight of the Harpoon. The new anti-ship Tomahawk upgrade is still a while away (if ever), is neither terribly LO nor terribly fast, and a stop-gap in any case. Fast anti-ship and fast land attack are different sides of the same coin.
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November 13, 2010 at 8:14 am