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Pentagon tests first land-based cruise missile after pulling out of INF Treaty

Rogue Valley

Rogue Valley

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Pentagon tests first land-based cruise missile after pulling out of INF Treaty

320

A conventional cruise missile rises from San Nicolas Island, CA.

8/19/19
The Pentagon conducted a test of a land-based cruise missile on Sunday, the first such test since the U.S. pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty earlier this month. "On Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 2:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, the Department of Defense conducted a flight test of a conventionally-configured ground-launched cruise missile at San Nicolas Island, California," the Pentagon said in a statement on Monday. "The test missile exited its ground mobile launcher and accurately impacted its target after more than 500 kilometers of flight." A U.S. official said the missile was a variant of a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, designed to carry a conventional, not nuclear, payload. "Data collected and lessons learned from this test will inform the Department of Defense's development of future intermediate-range capabilities," the Pentagon said. The U.S. officially withdrew from the INF Treaty on Aug. 2 after the Trump administration declared Russia had long been in material breach of the Cold War arms-control pact. While analysts have warned that the treaty's end could lead to a dangerous new arms race, senior administration officials argued the U.S. had no choice but to terminate a deal that only one side was abiding by.

The Pentagon began research and development efforts focused on mobile, conventional and ground-launched cruise and ballistic missile systems in 2017 that it described as being in the "early stages" due to America's compliance with the INF Treaty. "Now that we have withdrawn, the Department of Defense will fully pursue the development of these ground-launched conventional missiles as a prudent response to Russia's actions and as part of the Joint Force's broader portfolio of conventional strike options," Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in a statement on Aug. 2. Esper told reporters earlier this month that those weapons would be based in Asia but said the exact location requires further discussions with allies in the region.
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Although a new arms race isn't an automatic, the termination of the INF Treaty does have the potential to open the door.

That said, Russia has been in INF non-compliance since at least 2010, if not before.

Related: U.S. Tests Missile With A Range Prohibited By Now-Abandoned Treaty
 
Rogue Valley said:
Pentagon tests first land-based cruise missile after pulling out of INF Treaty

320

A conventional cruise missile rises from San Nicolas Island, CA.



Although a new arms race isn't an automatic, the termination of the INF Treaty does have the potential to open the door.

That said, Russia has been in INF non-compliance since at least 2010, if not before.

Related: U.S. Tests Missile With A Range Prohibited By Now-Abandoned Treaty
Click to expand...

It is not just the Russian problem. China has deployed thousands of short range missiles which when paired with the longer range type threaten most US bases/carriers in the Pacific.


Chinese military consider these 4 countries, SK, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines as a choke on Chinese territorial ambitions.

Now where will the US deploy these missiles? Australia has already said no
 
JANFU said:
Now where will the US deploy these missiles? Australia has already said no
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Esper said further negotiations are necessary. Probably SK and the Philippines are out also.

At least as long as Trump is in the White House. You can't trust that fat bastard.
 
JANFU said:
It is not just the Russian problem. China has deployed thousands of short range missiles which when paired with the longer range type threaten most US bases/carriers in the Pacific.


Chinese military consider these 4 countries, SK, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines as a choke on Chinese territorial ambitions.

Now where will the US deploy these missiles? Australia has already said no
Click to expand...

China is the likely reason the US pulled out of the INF treaty.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
China is the likely reason the US pulled out of the INF treaty.
Click to expand...

I would say a major reason why. Imagine what the Chinese military capabilities will be in 10 years?
 
War is the father of all things. Heraclitus.


Enviado desde mi iPad utilizando Tapatalk Pro
 
JANFU said:
It is not just the Russian problem. China has deployed thousands of short range missiles which when paired with the longer range type threaten most US bases/carriers in the Pacific.


Chinese military consider these 4 countries, SK, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines as a choke on Chinese territorial ambitions.

Now where will the US deploy these missiles? Australia has already said no
Click to expand...

Esper and Pompeo are USMA grads and they together like the island positioning strategy they've derived from the island hopping strategy of WW II.

Each has been traveling the Pacific focused on islands.


Guam.

Federated States of Micronesia.

The Marshall Islands.

Palau.

Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island, off Papua New Guinea.

A shuttered naval facility on Midway Island (in the Northern Pacific) is likely to be reopened and expanded. We recall New Guinea and Midway hosted American military installations during the second world war.


Pompeo is greasing the treaty skids while Esper is working on nailing down agreement to locate and position the missiles. Esper likes to say in several months but everyone knows this will go into another year or two at the least.

Beijing's hopping mad flapping their arms and shouting so we know things aren't going so badly for the good guys. Eighty percent of their missiles are short and intermediate range. Matching and countering that blows up a lot of plans in Beijing.

There are also some other positives.

In 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government signed an agreement with SecDef Ashton Carter that allowed both countries to use each other’s bases, a move many at the time said is momentous and which Beijing and Moscow called horrendous along with Tehran and Syria.

The two governments have also signed agreements on secure military communications and are looking to wrap up partnerships on sharing geospatial information and deepening defence industry cooperation. India and USA became strategic defense partners in 2014. Now almost everyone agrees China and India will not fight one another as neither will India and USA fight one another. (That leaves Russia odd man out ha.)

India's become very positive on the F21 that will have technologies from the F22 and cutting-edge F35 models to build jointly in India which continues to move away from Russian military technologies. New Delhi has had a flood of complaints about the Su-35 which Moscow blames on Indian pilots and mechanics.

India is btw training the Vietnam Navy in the six new Kilo Klass subs it just finished buying from Russia and that has the Klub missile that can penetrate into mainland China. India several years ago completed huge naval and air force bases on the Andaman islands at the north end of the Malacca Strait just to let Beijing know there's a new cop on the beat. The bases also cover the Bay of Bengal to Myanmar where China is building naval and air bases. Chinese oil tankers from the ME have to pass off the south of the subcontinent as it is.

No one underestimates the enemy yet no one should let 'em make anyone soil his pants either.
 
JANFU said:
I would say a major reason why. Imagine what the Chinese military capabilities will be in 10 years?
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I can see China taking a shot at a US vessel.
If China’s is stuck with Trump in 2020 and he won’t sign the usual toothless trade agreement, China might do a sneak attack. For example, a “rogue vessel” harassing a US ship with unsafe maneuvers, then suddenly releasing a short range torpedo, then rushing back into territorial waters, daring us to escalate.

They will do it quick, sneaky, deniable, at minimum risk to themselves. They are waiting for 2020, too.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
China is the likely reason the US pulled out of the INF treaty.
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No, it had far more to do with Russian intransigence.

The Russians had pretty much been in violation of the treaty for almost a decade already. Their development of the SS-7 SCREWDRIVER in 2008 was a clear violation, a land based cruise missile. Meanwhile they would try to claim that testing rockets that the US used only at White Sands they would constantly say were violations. Pretty much they tried to protest anything the US tried to do (even non-weapon systems used for testing defensive systems), meanwhile they were building and deploying actual weapons that were clear violations.

China has little impact on this, we long ago retired almost all systems that were under the prevue of the INF. And I have yet to hear of us bringing back the MGM-31 PERSHING, the main system that we eliminated because of the INF.

And of all weapons to test as clearly outside the INF allowances, bringing back the ground launched cruise missile is more of a "See we did it" statement than anything else. It was always one of the lesser aspects of INF weapons, especially since we do not even use the Nuclear variant of the TOMAHAWK in service anymore. The last branch to use those was the Navy, and they retired them around a decade ago.
 
chuckiechan said:
I can see China taking a shot at a US vessel.
If China’s is stuck with Trump in 2020 and he won’t sign the usual toothless trade agreement, China might do a sneak attack. For example, a “rogue vessel” harassing a US ship with unsafe maneuvers, then suddenly releasing a short range torpedo, then rushing back into territorial waters, daring us to escalate.
Click to expand...

Yea, about as likely as one of their submarines "accidentally" launching torpedoes at one of our aircraft carriers, then occupying Saipan.
 
Oozlefinch said:
No, it had far more to do with Russian intransigence.

The Russians had pretty much been in violation of the treaty for almost a decade already. Their development of the SS-7 SCREWDRIVER in 2008 was a clear violation, a land based cruise missile. Meanwhile they would try to claim that testing rockets that the US used only at White Sands they would constantly say were violations. Pretty much they tried to protest anything the US tried to do (even non-weapon systems used for testing defensive systems), meanwhile they were building and deploying actual weapons that were clear violations.

China has little impact on this, we long ago retired almost all systems that were under the prevue of the INF. And I have yet to hear of us bringing back the MGM-31 PERSHING, the main system that we eliminated because of the INF.

And of all weapons to test as clearly outside the INF allowances, bringing back the ground launched cruise missile is more of a "See we did it" statement than anything else. It was always one of the lesser aspects of INF weapons, especially since we do not even use the Nuclear variant of the TOMAHAWK in service anymore. The last branch to use those was the Navy, and they retired them around a decade ago.
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Leaving the INF Treaty Won’t Help Trump Counter China - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
U.S. officials say that the major reason for withdrawing is to contest China’s growing military power and assertiveness. They argue that the United States needs to deploy conventional ground-based, intermediate-range missile systems (GBIRs) against China2—systems that the INF Treaty prohibits the United States from fielding. And because Beijing is not a party to the treaty, officials argue, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has a tremendous advantage.
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It has been reported the US wanted out to counter China or somehow get China in the INF
 
Isn't it International law that only the USA has to follow arms limitations and disarm, with all other countries exempt from any arms treaty it signs?
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Leaving the INF Treaty Won’t Help Trump Counter China - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

It has been reported the US wanted out to counter China or somehow get China in the INF
Click to expand...

And once again, how is this going to help?

Remember, I ignore politics, and tend to concentrate on the big picture, and what it means overall. And among this is things like what is being done to counter it.

OK, we have rebuilt the ground based cruise missile. How exactly would this be of any use in a conflict with China? The only warhead we used on the GLCM was the W84 .5-120 kiloton nuclear warhead. So in regards to China, what exactly would a ground launched nuclear cruise missile do that we can not do already with sub, surface, or air launched variants?

I can tell you, not a damned thing.

This to me seems much more like a "See, we told you!" type of PR stunt. Out of all the systems we killed when we signed the INF Treaty, this was the easiest one to bring back. All we had to do was pull one of the GLCM launchers out of mothballs, replace the launch package with something much more modern (probably lifted from a surface ship), and throw in a missile.

And this was 1 of 3 systems the treaty killed. I have yet to hear any mention of us bringing back the Pershing series of missiles, which is something that the Soviets were much more worried about. The main reason the GLCM was thrown in was because it was yet another system where the launch out of range of a conventional missile could easily be confused with a nuclear one, and ignite a nuclear exchange essentially by mistake.

Hell, the main places these were fielded was in Germany. We don't even have those bases anymore, and Russia is a lot farther away than the Soviets were in those days.
 
Oozlefinch said:
And once again, how is this going to help?

Remember, I ignore politics, and tend to concentrate on the big picture, and what it means overall. And among this is things like what is being done to counter it.

OK, we have rebuilt the ground based cruise missile. How exactly would this be of any use in a conflict with China? The only warhead we used on the GLCM was the W84 .5-120 kiloton nuclear warhead. So in regards to China, what exactly would a ground launched nuclear cruise missile do that we can not do already with sub, surface, or air launched variants?

I can tell you, not a damned thing.

This to me seems much more like a "See, we told you!" type of PR stunt. Out of all the systems we killed when we signed the INF Treaty, this was the easiest one to bring back. All we had to do was pull one of the GLCM launchers out of mothballs, replace the launch package with something much more modern (probably lifted from a surface ship), and throw in a missile.

And this was 1 of 3 systems the treaty killed. I have yet to hear any mention of us bringing back the Pershing series of missiles, which is something that the Soviets were much more worried about. The main reason the GLCM was thrown in was because it was yet another system where the launch out of range of a conventional missile could easily be confused with a nuclear one, and ignite a nuclear exchange essentially by mistake.

Hell, the main places these were fielded was in Germany. We don't even have those bases anymore, and Russia is a lot farther away than the Soviets were in those days.
Click to expand...

Base a few hundred in Guam as a standoff weapon that is always in the region not on a destroyer that was called away. Another few hundred in South Korea and another few hundred in Japan

Now you have a couple thousand cruise missiles + those in destroyers and subs without the billion dollar cost of the ship ( x 16)
 
Oozlefinch said:
And once again, how is this going to help?

Remember, I ignore politics, and tend to concentrate on the big picture, and what it means overall. And among this is things like what is being done to counter it.

OK, we have rebuilt the ground based cruise missile. How exactly would this be of any use in a conflict with China? The only warhead we used on the GLCM was the W84 .5-120 kiloton nuclear warhead. So in regards to China, what exactly would a ground launched nuclear cruise missile do that we can not do already with sub, surface, or air launched variants?

I can tell you, not a damned thing.

This to me seems much more like a "See, we told you!" type of PR stunt. Out of all the systems we killed when we signed the INF Treaty, this was the easiest one to bring back. All we had to do was pull one of the GLCM launchers out of mothballs, replace the launch package with something much more modern (probably lifted from a surface ship), and throw in a missile.

And this was 1 of 3 systems the treaty killed. I have yet to hear any mention of us bringing back the Pershing series of missiles, which is something that the Soviets were much more worried about. The main reason the GLCM was thrown in was because it was yet another system where the launch out of range of a conventional missile could easily be confused with a nuclear one, and ignite a nuclear exchange essentially by mistake.

Hell, the main places these were fielded was in Germany. We don't even have those bases anymore, and Russia is a lot farther away than the Soviets were in those days.
Click to expand...


Actually the Pershing IIs were deployed in West Germany. The Ground Launched Cruise Missiles (nuclear variants) were deployed in Sicily, Belgium, and Britain. The only place these deployments were not met with massive protests was in Sicily because it was said that the local mafia ordered locals not to protest as mafia run businesses had the contracts for the local support facilities for the GLCM.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Base a few hundred in Guam as a standoff weapon that is always in the region not on a destroyer that was called away. Another few hundred in South Korea and another few hundred in Japan

Now you have a couple thousand cruise missiles + those in destroyers and subs without the billion dollar cost of the ship ( x 16)
Click to expand...

What, place nuclear cruise missiles on Guam as a stand-off weapon? What are we going to do, nuke the ocean if China shows up to invade?

South Korea? Why on earth are we going to nuke North Korea? The tip of the Shandong Peninsula or Shanghai? If we deployed them to Korea, they can just barely reach Beijing.

Once again, why? We can do that already with other systems, which are much less likely to be intercepted, and can carry much larger warheads.

Remember, the GLCM was not built as a strategic weapon to nuke the capitols of our enemies. The warhead it has is much to small to be effective at that. With it being scaled way down to .5 kt, it was designed as a tactical battlefield weapon.

And cost? These things cost $1.4 million each, and that is for the conventional version. Figure well over 2 million for a nuke version. A couple of thousand? That is a couple of billion dollars. That is more than the cost of an Arleigh Burke destroyer. And thousands... I am not even going to ask why in the hell we would ever build thousands of nuclear tipped cruise missiles.

Sorry, your entire counter-argument makes absolutely no sense at all.
 
Dayton3 said:
Actually the Pershing IIs were deployed in West Germany. The Ground Launched Cruise Missiles (nuclear variants) were deployed in Sicily, Belgium, and Britain. The only place these deployments were not met with massive protests was in Sicily because it was said that the local mafia ordered locals not to protest as mafia run businesses had the contracts for the local support facilities for the GLCM.
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Yes, because they had a range that allowed them to be placed there. In addition most of West Germany was largely considered a "toss-off" in the event of WWIII. The Pershing had a range of around 650 miles, the GLCM had a range of around 1,500 miles.

And you also have to look at the concept of how such weapons would be deployed. The PERSHING was to be used on the defense, to blunt the Warsaw offensive, hitting troop concentrations, supply dumps, and transit centers as NATO was withdrawing from the region. Even doing so at their own facilities as a kind of "Scorched Earth" type of operation.

The GLCM would be much more actively used when NATO then went on the offensive. Being used to soften up positions prior to an offensive operation. First launched from bases in the UK and France, then moving forward as the offensive continued.

Oh, and there was no "nuclear variant" of the GLCM. The BGM-109G was the only Ground Based Cruise Missile we deployed. And every single one of them was a nuclear missile.
 
Oozlefinch said:
What, place nuclear cruise missiles on Guam as a stand-off weapon? What are we going to do, nuke the ocean if China shows up to invade?

South Korea? Why on earth are we going to nuke North Korea? The tip of the Shandong Peninsula or Shanghai? If we deployed them to Korea, they can just barely reach Beijing.

Once again, why? We can do that already with other systems, which are much less likely to be intercepted, and can carry much larger warheads.

Remember, the GLCM was not built as a strategic weapon to nuke the capitols of our enemies. The warhead it has is much to small to be effective at that. With it being scaled way down to .5 kt, it was designed as a tactical battlefield weapon.

And cost? These things cost $1.4 million each, and that is for the conventional version. Figure well over 2 million for a nuke version. A couple of thousand? That is a couple of billion dollars. That is more than the cost of an Arleigh Burke destroyer. And thousands... I am not even going to ask why in the hell we would ever build thousands of nuclear tipped cruise missiles.

Sorry, your entire counter-argument makes absolutely no sense at all.
Click to expand...

Who said nukes, the US has plenty of non nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles does it not.

The Arleigh Burke costs 1.8 billion and holds 96 missiles. 1000 tomahawk missiles would cost the same as just one Burke. It is the same thing that China is basically doing
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Who said nukes, the US has plenty of non nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles does it not.
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The GLCM is not a conventional launching platform, it never has been. And the "TOMAHAWK" series of missiles are not interchangeable. GLCM missiles are made just for GLCM, Sub launch can only be sub launched, surface launched can only be surface launched. And yes, air launched can only be air launched.

What, did you really think these were all interchangeable?

avcruz_2_04.jpg


Tomahawk_Block_IV_cruise_missile_-crop.jpg


tomahawk.jpg


Pictured above is the ALCM, the sub-surface variant, and the naval variant. Each one is distinctly different just visually, let alone in how it functions. Not much is available on the GLCM variant, but it seems like it was a slightly larger variant of the SLGM, with longer wings.
 
Oozlefinch said:
The GLCM is not a conventional launching platform, it never has been. And the "TOMAHAWK" series of missiles are not interchangeable. GLCM missiles are made just for GLCM, Sub launch can only be sub launched, surface launched can only be surface launched. And yes, air launched can only be air launched.

What, did you really think these were all interchangeable?

avcruz_2_04.jpg


Tomahawk_Block_IV_cruise_missile_-crop.jpg


tomahawk.jpg


Pictured above is the ALCM, the sub-surface variant, and the naval variant. Each one is distinctly different just visually, let alone in how it functions. Not much is available on the GLCM variant, but it seems like it was a slightly larger variant of the SLGM, with longer wings.
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From the OP link


On Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 2:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, the Department of Defense conducted a flight test of a conventionally-configured ground-launched cruise missile at San Nicolas Island, California," the Pentagon said in a statement on Monday. "The test missile exited its ground mobile launcher and accurately impacted its target after more than 500 kilometers of flight."

(MORE: Landmark Cold War-era arms-control pact officially dead, fueling fears of new nuclear arms race)
A U.S. official said the missile was a variant of a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, designed to carry a conventional, not nuclear, payload.
"Data collected and lessons learned from this test will inform the Department of Defense's development of future intermediate-range capabilities," the Pentagon sa
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IE a Tomahawk variant launched from a ground based system. Take up any inaccurate statements with the US official who made it
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
From the OP link

IE a Tomahawk variant launched from a ground based system. Take up any inaccurate statements with the US official who made it
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Great, so they pulled a 20+ year old missile out of storage.

Still have absolutely no idea what kind of use this thing could be.

There was a reason that that and the PERSHING were the "sacrificial goats" for the INF treaty. We had very few of them, and they had only been developed to counter the SS-20 SABER series of missiles. When the SABER was eliminated as part of the INF, there was no reason to keep these any more so they were part of the US side of that exchange.

What you are missing is that I am simply cutting out any propaganda type of nonsense, and simply looking at the weapon for what it is, and how it can be used. As I said, this entire test (and the things being said about it) are little more than propaganda fluff. What does it provide that we do not already have?

You mention using it to defend Guam. Well, the problem is that this is the GLCM. Conventional or not, it is still not a UGM-109B TASM, so it will be worthless against ships. Well, short of throwing a nuclear warhead on it and trying to detonate it in the center of a ship formation.

Maybe the difference here is that I actually know quite a bit about this series of missiles, and the multiple variants of it that there are. You seem to just treat them all as if they are a single interchangeable missile. And returning a ground launched variant to service still provides nothing we can not do already with air or surface launched ones we already have.
 
Oozlefinch said:
Great, so they pulled a 20+ year old missile out of storage.

Still have absolutely no idea what kind of use this thing could be.

There was a reason that that and the PERSHING were the "sacrificial goats" for the INF treaty. We had very few of them, and they had only been developed to counter the SS-20 SABER series of missiles. When the SABER was eliminated as part of the INF, there was no reason to keep these any more so they were part of the US side of that exchange.

What you are missing is that I am simply cutting out any propaganda type of nonsense, and simply looking at the weapon for what it is, and how it can be used. As I said, this entire test (and the things being said about it) are little more than propaganda fluff. What does it provide that we do not already have?

You mention using it to defend Guam. Well, the problem is that this is the GLCM. Conventional or not, it is still not a UGM-109B TASM, so it will be worthless against ships. Well, short of throwing a nuclear warhead on it and trying to detonate it in the center of a ship formation.

Maybe the difference here is that I actually know quite a bit about this series of missiles, and the multiple variants of it that there are. You seem to just treat them all as if they are a single interchangeable missile. And returning a ground launched variant to service still provides nothing we can not do already with air or surface launched ones we already have.
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I said nothing about defending Guam just basing a large number there. The US is a little short on naval ships having a large number of missiles in the region able to fire at once rather than wait a couple of weeks could be a benefit. The equivalent of 10 Burke destroyers worth of cruise missiles for jyst the price of the missiles rather than the ship plus missiles.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
I said nothing about defending Guam just basing a large number there. The US is a little short on naval ships having a large number of missiles in the region able to fire at once rather than wait a couple of weeks could be a benefit. The equivalent of 10 Burke destroyers worth of cruise missiles for jyst the price of the missiles rather than the ship plus missiles.
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Wow, so many faults.

Once again, these are not anti-ship missiles. These are land attack missiles, even if conventional and not nuclear. These can not attack ships, they attack fixed land positions.

Secondly, "thousands"? OMG, not even close!

At most, the US had less than 200 of these even at the height of the Cold War. Now even though these were Air Force equipment, I will be using conventional Army nomenclature. Battalion instead of Squadron, Battery instead of Flight.

Now a GLCM Battalion was composed of 12 launchers, each launcher had 4 missiles. That means an entire Battalion of these is equipped with 48 missiles. At the height of their deployment during the Cold War, we only had 10 Battalions in operation. So for your hypothetical "Thousands", we would be talking about more than 4 times that number just on Guam alone.

Got an idea yet how absolutely insane that idea is?

So you want to put thousands of these things on Guam, in order to have a lot of missiles, that are unable to attack ships coming to attack the island.

No, this would not be the equivalent of "10 Burke Destroyers". Because many of those missiles will actually be the UGM-109B TASM missiles, which actually can attack ships. Using land attack missiles would be absolutely insane and pointless in attacking ships. Might as well try to shoot fish from 100 meters away with a shotgun.

And they can not fire "all at once". The Battalion could fire all 48 of their missiles, then they would be going down for a reload cycle. And unless they go insanely high in this capability, that means they are going to be down around 8 hours as they reload all of their missiles. It takes about 1-2 hours per launcher to complete a full reload of 4 missiles. So including time to go to and from the ammo depot to get more missiles, this 8 hours is actually more like 10+ hours. Then and only then can they fire another 48 missiles. And do you think the enemy is going to just be sitting back waiting to get pounded again?

As opposed to your fantasy, we would actually be much better off deploying a permanent solution, like basing something like AEGIS Ashore there rather than this insane fantasy. That system actually can in theory be equipped with any Standard Missile of the US Navy. Including the UGM-109B TASM Anti-Ship missile.

Please, oh please go and do some research about the Tomahawk series of missiles, their capabilities, and what they can do. And I do mean series. The GLCM, the ALCM, the SLCM, and the SSLCM. Each of these are very different, and are not even close to each other even though they are part of the same family. You can not just interchange them whenever you want.

In fact, far better would be to just acquire more of the AGM-84L air launched HARPOON missiles. This would be far cheaper than this insanity, and Guam already has a large air base.
 
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