The Tomahawk Missile and the Land Attack Revolution: 1980-1990

Tomahawk is fired from a Ticonderoga-class cruiser

Since Desert Storm in 1991, the Tomahawk cruise missile has become the signature weapon of the United States. Fired during operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Bosnia, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, and most lately Syria, it has become a rare military operation that does not include a salvo of Tomahawks launched from Navy ships offshore. However, in 1980, when the first Tomahawk was fired from a surface combatant at sea, such a capability was unimaginable.

Land Attack Before Tomahawk

The United States Navy began experimenting with ship launched land attack missiles as part of its extensive guided missile research during World War II. The final product of these early efforts was the SSM-N-8 Regulus, a large subsonic cruise missile with a range of 500 miles and a 40 kiloton nuclear warhead. It was declared operation in 1954 and by 1957 16 ships (including 10 carriers, four cruisers, and two submarines) had been modified to carry it. However, Regulus was regarded as a strategic weapon and was clearly inferior in this role to the Polaris submarine launched ballistic missile. When Polaris became operational in 1960, Regulus was quickly retired, leaving the fleet in 1964.

Regulus is fired from a Baltimore-class cruiser

From the retirement of Regulus in the 1960's until the development of Tomahawk in the 1980's, the Navy's surface combatants lacked a land attack capability outside of short ranged gunfire. Even this capability was vanishing as the World War II era battleships and cruisers with their large caliber guns continued to leave the fleet and were replaced by guided missile ships. With the retirement of Oklahoma City in 1979 the surface Navy's only remaining land attack weapon was the 5" gun.

The Revolution Begins

Thus, the 1980 Tomahawk missile trials aboard the Spruance-class destroyer Merill (DD-976) represented a massive step forward in land attack capability for the Navy's surface combatants. However, while the Tomahawk missile itself was ready in 1980, it took a decade of focused procurement to give the fleet as a whole the powerful land attack abilities that it displayed for the first time during Desert Storm in 1991.

The problem was capacity. Tomahawk is a 20 foot long, 21 inch diameter missile that weighs over one and a half tons. In 1980 there were no existing launchers that could accommodate it. Instead, Tomahawk was fired from a new 4 cell "armored box launcher" that demanded significant deck space and placed additional weight fairly high on a ship. This meant that a 10,000 ton cruiser or destroyer could only accommodate two such launchers for a total of just eight missiles.

Two armored box launchers aboard an Iowa-class battleship - the one in the foreground is in the firing position with a missile emerging from it's cell.

In an attempt to get more Tomahawks at sea the Navy turned to the large World War II era ships of the reserve fleet. The first though was to refit the three 20,000 ton Des Moines-class heavy cruisers with eight armored box launchers each. However, it was soon discovered that this armament was at the limit of what those ships could carry and attention turned to the four 60,000 ton Iowa-class battleships instead. Surprisingly, despite their much larger size, it was found that the battleships would cost little more to recommission and operate than the cruisers and the order was given to return them to active service beginning with New Jersey (BB-62) in 1982.

Changing Missions and Growing Numbers

By 1985, the armored box launcher conversions had begun reaching the fleet in number. Two battleships, three cruisers, and five destroyers now carried Tomahawk for a total of 104 missiles and more ships would soon follow. But these numbers were still far too low for a meaningful conventional land attack capability against an enemy as large as the USSR. However, early Tomahawk was not intended for the massive land bombardments that now characterize its use.

Tomahawk initially came in two main variants: an active radar homing antiship missile with a 1,000 lb warhead and an inertia / radar terrain mapping guided land attack weapon with a 150 kiloton nuclear warhead (a third variant that combined the warhead of the antiship weapon with the guidance of the nuclear weapon existed, but only in very small numbers). In these roles the total number of missiles that could be deployed was far less important as only a handful of either variant would be required to neutralize their intended targets. It is interesting to note that these two variants were procured in roughly equal numbers (with a small bias towards the nuclear version) until the end of the 1980's.

In 1984, this plan to deploy a few hundred nuclear and antiship Tomahawks was upended by the introduction of the Mk 41 Vertical Launch System. Today the standard weapon of the fleet, in 1984 it was a revolutionary concept. Not only was it a universal launcher that would eventually fire nearly every missile in the Navy's arsenal, but it stored them in an amazingly efficient manner. In the space that a Mk 26 launcher took up for just 44 ASROC or medium-range Standard missiles, a Mk 41 launcher could fit 61 of the much larger Tomahawk missiles.

Open hatches on a Mk 41 launcher - each cell contains a prepackaged missile canister.

The first ship to carry the Mk 41 was the Spruance-class destroyer Spruance (DD-963) in 1986. In that same year, the Ticonderoga-class cruiser Bunker Hill (CG-52) became the first ship to commission with the Mk 41. With a single 61 cell launcher on each converted Spruance and two on Bunker Hill, together these two ships could carry more Tomahawks than all 11 ships with armored box launchers combined (the third battleships, Missouri (BB-63), recommissioned in 1986).

With a total of 22 Mk 41 equipped Ticonderoga-class cruisers planned, 29 more Spruance-class destroyers available for conversion, and the new 90-cell Arleigh Burke-class destroyers under construction, the Navy suddenly faced the possibility of being able to put far more Tomahawks at sea than it had ever planned. With potentially thousands of Mk 41 cells available, the Navy seized the opportunity for large scale non-nuclear land attack capability and ramped up production of the previously neglected conventional land attack variant of Tomahawk.

Tomahawk's First Combat Use

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the Navy had 37 Tomahawk capable surface combatants with a potential load of over 2,000 Tomahawk missiles (the actual number would be far lower since the cruisers had to dedicate Mk 41 cells for surface to air and antisubmarine missiles). Missile procurement had kept pace and at that point the stockpile boasted nearly 2,500 Tomahawks (although almost 1,000 of which were nuclear or antiship variants). The next year, the liberation of Kuwait was supported by a storm of almost 300 Tomahawk missiles, proving the tremendous value of the Navy's decade of investment in a revolutionary weapon and setting the tone for future naval operations.