BGM-109 Tomahawk

From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles are U.S. designed to be launched from ships and submarines. A ground-launch version existed, but was destroyed as part of bilateral arms reduction. The weapons have gone through a number of generations of airframe, guidance, and warhead, and are now a mature system, proven in combat, that still finds room for improvements.

All active U.S. Navy ships that fire Tomahawks do so, even submarines, from a vertical launch system.

Launcher variants

BGM-109 surface launch version

Two classes of surface warships, the Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Burke-class destroyers use the vertical launch system (VLS) with hot launch, usually populated primarily with surface-to-air missiles, but capable of loading large numbers of cruise missiles. The VLS are managed by the Mark 99 fire control system, a subsystem of the AEGIS battle management system.

Normally, a Ticonderoga-class carries 12 Tomahawks, but in a special mission in the Gulf War, USS San Jacinto (CG-56) loaded all 122 VLS tubes with Tomahawk, relied on sister ships for air defense, and was the principal land attack ship.

UGM-109 submarine launch version

UGM-109 versions cold launch from submarines, from VLS tubes on U.K. Astute-class, and U.S. submarines of the improved Los Angeles-class, Seawolf-class, and Virginia-class. A torpedo-tube-launched version is available, but the torpedo tubes cannot hold the longer and more recent versions.

Warheads

• Unitary 1000 lb explosive
• Cluster submunition
• Nuclear (W80 (nuclear weapon))
• Carbon filament fiber for temporarily disabling electrical power grids