Army Long Range Missile Launcher Spotted on Navy LCS
According to USNI News,
In the INF signed in December 1987, "both countries reported all land-based ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers and cruise, but a June 27, 2019 Congressional Research Service report on the treaty states that the prohibition "applied to missiles carrying nuclear or conventional warheads, but not to missiles deployed at sea or in the air."
That cross-domain is not just a technical and economic perspective, but also a supposedly post-INF measure.
In the articles, the launcher is a Lockheed Martin MK 70 containerized vertical launch system, capable of launching both Raytheon SM-6 and Tomahawk land attack missiles.
USS Savannah (LCS-28) will participate in a live-fire demonstration involving the containerized launch system in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The MK 70 launcher is part of a U.S. Army program called Typhoon, part of an emerging family of land-based precision weapons with ranges ranging from hundreds to thousands of miles, and repurposing the existing MK 41 firing system.
Prior to the termination of the INF Treaty, the U.S. deployed ground-based MK 41s to Romania and Poland as part of the Aegis Ashore. The Navy states that the AA houses SM-3 BMD missiles and does not house land-based Tomahawks, which the INF prohibits.
The Marine Corps developed mobile launchers for Tomahawk and NSM as part of the Force Design 2030 military reforms. It is unclear if this will be part of a larger LCS upgrade effort in the future.
USNIニュースによると、発射装置はロッキード・マーティンMK 70コンテナ化垂直発射システムで、レイセオンSMー６とトマホーク陸上攻撃ミサイルの両方を発射できる。MK 70 ランチャーは、タイフーンと呼ばれる米陸軍計画の一部であり、既存の MK 41 発射システムの再利用。今後大規模な LCS アップグレード作業の一部となるかどうかは不明。
