On Air-Launched LRASM:
Posted on InsideDefense.com: June 4, 2014
A Senate panel has rejected the Pentagon's plan to field an urgently needed new air-launched, anti-ship cruise missile in the Pacific, proposing in its fiscal year 2015 defense authorization bill to derail a plan to make Lockheed Martin's Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile demonstration project a program of record.
The Senate Armed Services Committee's bill would strip all funding for the Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare (OASuW) capability -- $202.9 million -- and require the Navy to redirect previously appropriated funds for the project "to conduct more thorough analyses of alternatives for meeting combatant commander needs."
At issue are U.S. Pacific Command's desire for a new air-launched anti-ship cruise missile, a battle between missile-makers Raytheon and Lockheed over which product is best suited to the requirement, and a tug-of-war between the executive and legislative branches over how to select the best weapon. DOD wants LRASM operationally ready on Air Force B-1B bombers as soon as 2018 and on Navy F/A-18E/F fighters in 2019.
Last year, Pentagon leaders picked the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile program -- a technology development project led by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research -- to meet PACOM's urgent request. LRASM is a modified Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range (JASSM-ER) that incorporates additional sensors and systems to create a stealthy, survivable subsonic cruise missile. The LRASM program was also slated by DOD leaders to satisfy the OASuW requirement, which the Navy had previously planned to pursue with a interim sole-source contract to Raytheon (DefenseAlert, Oct. 17, 2013).
Raytheon, which believed its Tomahawk cruise missile was best suited to the OASuW requirement, cried foul at the Defense Department's plan to install Lockheed as the OASuW supplier and accused Pentagon leaders of circumventing weapon system acquisition laws requiring competition (DefenseAlert, Nov. 22, 2013).
In March, DOD overhauled the OASuW acquisition strategy by splitting the program into two parts, retaining Lockheed Martin's LRASM to provide the air-launched OASuW increment and establishing a competition for a future OASuW increment. The revised approach followed a directive in the FY-14 defense authorization bill, enacted in December, requiring a more competitive OASuW approach than the LRASM-only plan.
Still, the Senate Armed Services Committee is not satisfied with the updated OASuW plan. The panel's report accompanying the FY-15 defense authorization bill recommends continuing "that same non-competitive approach, but would field only a limited number of the air-launched version of the missile."
The panel notes the FY-15 budget request and associated five-year plan "envision spending roughly $1.5 billion to acquire roughly 110 missiles," the report states. "The committee is concerned that this program was created to respond to an urgent combatant commander need, but was done so with insufficient analyses of other available alternatives, and with insufficient regard for the costs of locking in a long-term commitment under a non-competitive program."
The committee also challenges Navy plans to terminate Tomahawk production in FY-16 (DefenseAlert, March 21). Its bill would increase the Navy's proposed FY-15 request for the effort -- $194 million to buy 100 of the land-attack cruise missiles -- to $276 million, which would keep Tomahawk production at the minimum sustaining rate of 196 missiles a year.
"The committee is concerned about the Navy's abrupt decision to truncate production," the report states. "The Tomahawk is [a] combat-proven missile, having been used well over 2,000 times in the last two decades, and has a proven operational track record and capability. The Navy provided some limited information to support its proposal. However, the analysis supporting projected inventories and usage rates to be expected during the remainder of this decade was incomplete."
Raytheon Missile Systems is based in Tucson, AZ. Arizona is represented on the Senate Armed Services Committee by Sen. John McCain, the panel's senior Republican.
The committee directs the Navy to provide the analysis supporting the service's proposal to end Tomahawk production, "including an assessment of near-term and long-term threat analysis, impact on the industrial base and the needed timing of a mid-life certification/upgrade of the current Tomahawk inventory," the report states.
The House Armed Services Committee, in its FY-15 defense authorization bill agreed to by the full chamber on May 13, also raised concerns about plans to end Tomahawk production. That bill states the Navy secretary should provide a land-attack cruise missile roadmap; it also would authorize the DOD to enter into a five-year contract to extend Tomahawk production.
MY COMMENT/QUESTION: Note the "envision spending roughly $1.5 billion to acquire roughly 110 missiles," part ... this would mean almost 14m a piece; is this what the price of an LRASM is going to be?
