America's "masterpiece" cruise missile, Tomahawk

ByU. S. Navy

Following the victims of numerous casualties caused by air bombings that occurred in Syria, the US government by President Trump, on April 6, 2017, asserted that the responsibility of the attack is in Syria's Asado military government We have undertaken retaliatory measures to attack Air Force bases and others under the rule of the administration. In the attack, 59 cruise missiles from two destroyers "Porter" and "Ross" of the US Navy deploying in the eastern Mediterranean "TomahawkIt is fired.

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Tomahawk used by the US military deployment began in 1983Cruise missileis. The cylindrical body has a wing and a small turbofan engine built in it, and now it analyzes the GPS signal sent from the artificial satellite and the digital image by the ground surface camera, flying accurately to the target and bombing it It is a missile system that can be done.

A movie containing a state of firing a Tomahawk missile in the dark from the cruiser "Ross" has been released. Tomahawk, which is contained in the launch tube of the bridge, is first injected into the air at the bottom of the individual rocket booster, then ignites the turbofan engine and rises, flying at the target spot at a stretch.

USS Ross Launches Tomahawk Strike on Syrian Air Base - YouTube


What is currently used is the system belonging to the latest "block IV" among Tomahawk. Tomahawk was first deployed in 1983, and in fact the strategy was used in 1991Gulf Wartime. At this time, Tomahawk of "block II" generation is used, and a total of 288 shots were fired and the hit ratio was 85%. The opinion is divided as to whether to see this number as high or as low.

Since then, successive US government has continued to use Tomahawk and is listed as one of the most successful weapons not only in the United States but also in the world. Mr. Barry McCaffrey, who is in charge of the military commander during the Clinton administration and now serves as a defense analyst for the TV station MSNBC, said in a comment during the Syrian attack "Everyone loves Tomahawk." In addition, Tomahawk has a range of over 1000 miles (about 1600 km) in flight distance and has accurate attack capability by having advanced guidance ability as mentioned above. As a result, the attacks that had been done by bombers and others in the past have come to be carried out by unmanned missiles, and the risk of putting soldiers' lives at risk during attacks has been reduced.

ByPH3 BRAD DILLON

However, it does not mean that Tomahawk does not have drawbacks. Pros and cons exist as to whether or not the cost of a missile of about 1.59 million dollars (about 180 million yen) per shot is appropriate, and it is said that the ability to follow a moving target is not very high. Also, it is also true that the accuracy drops compared to the induced bombardment using aircraft deployed over the sky, depending on the type of target there are also cases where Tomahawk is unsuitable.

In Tomahawk the basic research that began in the 1970s began and the rough form of cruise missiles was formulated in the latter half of the 70s. After that, in 1980, we succeeded in launching the first mass-produced missile, and after a number of performance evaluations, in March 1983 "Plock I" was deployed to the actual battle. In the past, there were variations such as "TLAM-N" capable of mounting thermal nuclear warheads and "TASM" developed as an anti-ship missile, but as of March 2017 targeted on the ground "TLAM-E (Block IV)" is deployed as a ground-faced missile.

Although there are some drawbacks, Tomahawk has "high safety" due to high accuracy of hit and unattended attack. Although attacks using the unmanned aerial vehicle "Drone" are also being studied with the latest technology, it is said that it has not yet been able to fly a large bomb at the scale and speed as much as a cruise missile.