Launch Big Missiles from Big Ships

The Mk 41 VLS limits missile size. Catapults on carriers have no such limitations.
By Commander Collin Fox and Lieutenant Commander Dylan Phillips-Levine, U.S. Navy

Critics assert that antiaccess/area-denial threats have made aircraft carriers obsolete.1 Just
as carrier-based attack aircraft outranged and superseded battleships’ big guns, the attack
aircraft have themselves become outranged and superseded by long-range antiship missiles. In
the opening weeks of a conflict with China, which risk would the U.S. Navy take with its aircraft
carriers: destruction near the first island chain or irrelevance far outside it?

This dilemma between offensive fires and force protection hinges on what the carrier can
launch into the fight, and, more to the point, at what range. Although today’s short-legged
carrier air wing gives ample fuel for criticism, the carrier itself fundamentally is a protean
platform, able to rapidly change or replenish its huge payload of aircraft, weapons, and fuel.2 As
configured today, it lacks weapon systems with the standoff range to enable self-protection and
restore its contested relevance. The Navy’s Next Generation Air Dominance family of
platforms may eventually satisfy that requirement in the 2030s, but the intervening “dangerous
decade” will need interim solutions.3

The Navy could quickly boost aircraft carriers’ striking range in the near term by
catapulting large cruise missiles against enemy sea-denial defenses in the opening phase of a
great power war, then surging the carriers forward to consolidate sea control with their air
wings. The Navy should revisit the operational factors that shape missile requirements and
consider what such missiles could be—and how to get them into the fleet.

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 A Regulus I and its launch cart, as imagined in this composite, on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77). U.S.
Navy (Kallysta Castillo) and U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Shaping a Missile
The overall U.S. warfighting concept consists of playing away games—keeping the fight
far from U.S. shores. U.S. weapons are designed around the constraints of expeditionary launch
platforms. The heaviest missiles erupting from the ubiquitous Mk 41 vertical launch system
(VLS) weigh around 3,500 pounds and cannot be readily reloaded at sea. The heaviest ordnance
dropped by F/A-18E/F strike fighters weighs even less.
The range for such missiles can certainly grow—at the expense of affordability, salvo
size, and warhead weight. Fine-tuning such trade-offs probably will not be sufficient to achieve
adequate standoff range from China’s substantial antiaccess defenses while also delivering the
volume of fires needed to overwhelm the same. Larger missiles with more fuel are needed to
achieve substantially greater range, but larger missiles cannot be fired from existing VLS cells
or carrier aircraft.
China’s home-field advantage allows larger missile designs than those produced by U.S.
expeditionary design requirements. The solid-fueled DF-26, for example, achieves its
impressive 2,700–nautical mile (nm) range with a launch weight of 44,000 pounds. However,
the significant size, weight, and cost to the United States of intermediate-range ballistic missiles

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like the DF-26 make them ill-suited for a lengthy salvo competition in a conventional war—
particularly for an expeditionary force with stretched logistics. For the same range and warhead
size, an air-breathing cruise missile is smaller, lighter, and cheaper than an equivalent ballistic
missile. The differences between the Pershing II ballistic missile and the Tomahawk cruise
missile illustrate the price for speed. They share a similar range (~1,000 nm) and warhead mass
(~1,000 pounds), but the Pershing II weighed 16,451 pounds at launch, versus the Tomahawk’s
3,500 pounds (with booster). In constant dollars, the Pershing II costs around $10 million versus
the Tomahawk’s unit cost of $1.4 million.4
Reusable strike aircraft are far more cost-efficient than either type of missile, but only
when they can attack with the required massed fires and return. When mission effectiveness
trumps cost efficiency, defaulting to one-way strikes can double attack ranges, haul heavier
warheads, and greatly simplify tactical command and control.
The Navy experimented with ship-based catapult-launched cruise missiles (then called
“flying bombs”) in 1917, launched the Doolittle Raiders from the USS Hornet (CV-8) in 1942,
and catapulted F6F-5K Hellcat “assault drones” from the USS Boxer (CV-21) during the
Korean War. By the mid-1950s, select aircraft carriers, cruisers, and submarines were deploying
with the RGM-6 Regulus I, a long-range, nuclear-armed cruise missile.

Blast from the Past

Delivering strategic nuclear weapons counted for everything in the early Cold War. The
Navy rushed to improve both strategic deterrence and its position in Pentagon budget fights by
developing a survivable nuclear strike capability.

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He retired X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System demonstrator lands on the flight deck of the aircraft
carrier USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77). The X-47B’s range, payload, shape, and size make it a useful
starting point to imagine a large, stealthy, catapult-launched cruise missile filling a role similar to that of
the Regulus. U.S. Navy (Kevin J. Steinberg)

The Regulus quickly followed. Weighing in at 10,300 pounds at launch without a

booster—more than triple that of a BGM-109 Tomahawk—these subsonic cruise missiles could
launch from aircraft carriers, submarines, and heavy cruisers to deliver their 3,000-lb nuclear
warheads against targets 500 nm away. The missile first flew in 1951 and deployed as a strategic
nuclear deterrent on board the heavy cruiser USS Los Angeles (CA-135) in 1955.5
The Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile soon eclipsed both Regulus I and its
supersonic successor (Regulus II), though Admiral Elmo Zumwalt later lamented the decision
to decommission the missile, calling it the “single worst decision about weapons [the Navy]
made during my years of service.”6 But the Regulus operational concept—catapult-launched
cruise missiles—suggests an intriguing possibility for long-range conventional strike today.

During the Korean War, the Navy catapulted F6F-5K Hellcats from the USS Boxer (CV-21) as “assault drones.”
The drones, often painted brightly for training as shown here, were remotely controlled by crew members in other
aircraft such as the Douglas AD-2 Skyraider that trails this one. U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

The Tomahawk’s performance establishes a baseline for a bigger cruise missile.

Tomahawk’s 2,900-pound launch weight (without the booster) is split into three roughly equal

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parts: warhead, fuel, and airframe, including a small turbojet with 600 pounds of thrust and
small pop-out wings. The proposed catapult-launched missile—call it “Regulus III”—would be
roughly twice the weight of a tube-launched Tomahawk but carry a similar payload a lot farther.
A catapult-launched Regulus III design could achieve substantial performance gains by
freeing its shape from the physical constraints of a VLS cell’s 21-inch diameter and 22-foot
length, giving the new missile room to grow. A less constrained airframe allows more room for
fuel and better aerodynamics. It also permits a non-cylindrical, low-observable shape to better
penetrate enemy air defenses. All this ultimately increases the survivability of the catapult-
launched cruise missile and yields a greater probability of kill.
This missile might resemble the Northrop Grumman X-47B, a flying wing with roughly
double the empty and maximum gross weights of the Tomahawk, but also carrying a 1,000-lb
payload like the Tomahawk.7 These ratios make the 20-year-old X-47B design a good stand-in
for the proposed missile. Northrop Grumman published a 2,100+-nm range for the X-47B,
suggesting that a catapult-launched cruise missile of similar design, size, and weight—without
landing gear and other such extras—could manage closer to a 3,000-nm range on a one-way
mission.
Unlike sealed missile rounds, this larger missile concept would be assembled, armed,
and fueled just prior to launch. This would increase the carrier’s potential missile load and
minimize impacts to normal operations by allowing crated airframe components such as wings
and fuselages to be stacked where convenient on the carrier or resupply ships, without fire or
explosive concerns, while storing the warheads in the ship’s magazine. The absence of a built-
in warhead and fuel would also minimize the weight of the dry airframe for replenishment at
sea, which is generally limited to 5,700 pounds.8
Finally, decoupling warheads from preassembled missiles would permit greater tactical
flexibility. Using one or more Mk 80 series general purpose (GP) bombs—of 500, 1,000, or
2,000 pounds—as the internal warhead (with inversely variable fuel loads) would allow
immediate customization between range and weapon effects and obviate the need for a unique
warhead in the magazine. Arming it instead with submunitions would maximize dispersed
effects, while adding deployable decoys could help penetrate terminal enemy defenses. This
flexibility would allow strike planners to tailor each salvo’s payload mix to the target and threat

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environment. For flight-deck maneuvering and launch, the Regulus III would use an adapter
cart similar to that employed by Regulus I.
This evolutionary design approach relies on mature technology and a proven, if largely
forgotten, operational concept. Changing the launch platform and taking advantage of the
carrier’s powerful catapults sidesteps the physical constraints of existing launch concepts to
achieve a major increase in performance.

Develop, Deploy, and Employ

Tabletop exercises and wargames should evaluate this concept to explore its utility and
further inform requirements. Because a carrier-launched cruise missile is just an unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV) on a one-way mission, existing UAVs such as the MQ-25 Stingray could
be used (and reused) as surrogates during fleet exercises to develop employment tactics. The
underlying technology is well-proven.
Aircraft carriers would carry relatively few of these weapons during normal operations.
Combat logistics ships would carry the bulk of them, transferring them to the carriers before
long-range strikes. Assembling and launching these missiles would require precious space in
the hangar bay and on the flight deck, a potential predicament for a crowded aircraft carrier.
But their one-time use feature means that loss of space would be only temporary.
Catapult-launched cruise missiles could also transform quayside and mid-workup-cycle
aircraft carriers into rapidly deployable strike platforms. A tessellated parking arrangement of
three or four X-47s (standing in for the proposed missile) would take up about as much space
on deck as a single F/A-18F Super Hornet. Were a carrier to mass missile power by sailing
without an air wing embarked, it could stage several hundred catapult-launched cruise missiles
in the recovery area and hangar bay.
Although this concept is structured around maximizing long-range firepower, the
resulting system also could be rail-launched in smaller quantities from potentially vulnerable
ships that lack long-range strike weapons, such as large amphibious or littoral combat ships. It
also could be launched from heavy bombers or cargo aircraft.9

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 After launch, these larger cruise missiles would act like any other cruise missile:
navigating autonomously to fixed targets while receiving in-flight updates and cueing for
dynamic targets.
The weapon’s maximum range of nearly 3,000 miles would allow combat logistics ships
to resupply aircraft carriers and other ships in sanctuary firing positions. Once these persistent
long-range strikes had attrited enemy defenses and ships in coordination with other fires, carrier
strike groups could press ever closer, increasing the air wing’s volume of fires and gaining
decisive local sea control.
Carrier-launched cruise missiles would enable the carrier to pull its weight on long-range
strike and thus free the strike group’s attached cruisers and destroyers to adjust their warfighting
focus and modify VLS weapon load-outs for air and missile defense, surface warfare, and
antisubmarine warfare.
The notional size, weight, and configuration of Regulus III satisfy minimum basic
requirements of long range, replenishment at sea, and deconfliction with carrier operations.
They are not limits; another operational concept could produce a larger platform with longer
range, greater payload, and much greater speed.

Stop-Gap Measures
Some naval tacticians might argue that aircraft carriers and their attached air wings can
adequately cover the necessary capabilities, and, by extension, that carrier-launched cruise
missiles should stay in museums.10 Joint tanking support certainly expands the air wing’s
nominal advertised combat radius, but it is insufficient: The tyranny of distance is real.
If strikes must launch from far behind the first island chain, using tanking to add another
500 miles of range to carrier-based aircraft certainly helps, but more is needed.11 Sustaining
distant flight operations also depends on matériel readiness and crew limitations, producing in
sum a very limited number of discrete aim points that can be targeted per day. With existing
platforms, a carrier can deliver only a trickle of warheads at extreme range while also exposing
itself to potentially devastating counterfires.

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 As the Navy and Congress address the VLS capacity gap and the Army seeks to reinvent
coastal artillery with the Navy’s missiles, catapult-launched cruise missiles could serve as a
capable and expedient solution.12
The aircraft carrier needs powerful long-range strike. The quickest and most feasible way
to regain range with concentrated mass is a one-way trip. Until the carrier air wing catches up
in the 2030s, the carrier-launched cruise missile is a simple, low-risk, technologically mature
solution for an urgent operational need with strategic implications.

Questions

1- According to the text, what does the US warfighting concept consist of?
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2- A protean platform is the one that:
a) has a big landing space.
b) does not conform to any changes.
c) can rapidly change or replenish its huge payload of aircraft, weapons and fuel.
d) is not feasible under any circumstances.
e) None of the above.

3) "This dilemma between offensive fires and force protection hinges on what the carrier
can launch into the fight, and, more to the point, at what range.
The phrasal verb " hinges on" can best be replaced by :
a) is part of
b) depends on
c) counts on
d) combines
e) serves

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4) The proposed catapult-launched missile—call it “Regulus III” offers the following
advantages EXCEPT:
a) better aerodynamics.
b) decrease the survivability of the catapult-launched cruise missile.
c) more room for fuel.
d) a non-cylindrical, low-observable shape to better penetrate enemy air defenses.
e) increase the survivability of the catapult-launched cruise missile.

5) To sum up, what does the author think of the carrier launched cruise missile?
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6) The concept of a larger missile means that it would be assembled, armed, and fueled
just prior to launch.
What are the advantages of having to assemble a missile prior to launching it?
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7) What role did the Cold War play as far as developing nuclear strike capability?
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8) How will the next decade "2030" change the future of carrier air wing?
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