The United States Navy will enhance the firepower of its fleet of fast and agile warships, making them capable of launching long-range missiles while deployed in the contested South China Sea.
Announcing the upgrade, U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said it would apply to the relatively small Freedom-class and Independence-class littoral combat ships. Both variants of littoral combat ships will be equipped with the MK 70 Payload Delivery System, which is capable of firing four missiles from the containerized launcher vertically, including the 290-mile-range Standard Missile 6 and the 1,000-mile-range Tomahawk missile, Del Toro said.
The firepower enhancement revealed at the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI) Defense Forum in Washington, D.C, on Wednesday comes as China continues to expand its fleet of warships and naval operations in the Western Pacific Ocean, a vast maritime area that includes the South China Sea, where China has territorial disputes with its neighbors.
The Chinese military, which has built the world’s biggest navy by hull count, maintains a large naval and coast guard presence in the contested waters that are surrounded by China to the north, as well as other Southeast Asian nations. Its warships and maritime law enforcement vessels have frequently clashed with Philippine government ships.
Destroyer Squadron 7, which is a U.S. naval squadron deployed in Southeast Asia, serves as the commander of littoral combat ships based in Singapore. Two Independence-variant littoral combat ships, USS Omaha and USS Savannah, were spotted operating in the South China Sea recently.
The U.S. Navy will deploy the littoral combat ships with added capabilities forward around the globe, particularly in the Pacific Ocean, Del Toro added. He also claimed that the containerized launcher will provide “tremendous firepower” and more technical advantage over U.S. adversaries.
The MK 70, which adapts the MK 41 Vertical Launching System currently used by the U.S. Navy’s cruisers and destroyers, enables rapid deployment of offensive capability to nontraditional platforms and locations, according to defense contractor Lockheed Martin.
Naval Air Crewman Helicopter Second Class John Rabbat/U.S. Navy
The Chinese Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment by email. Newsweek has emailed the U.S. Navy for further comment on the littoral combat ship project.
The American littoral combat ships are currently being armed with the Naval Strike Missile, which strikes targets at sea 115 miles away. The Standard Missile 6 can perform antiair warfare, anti-surface warfare, and missile defense, while the Tomahawk is employed for attacking land targets.
In October last year, the Savannah conducted a live-fire test in the Eastern Pacific Ocean where it fired one Standard Missile 6 from the containerized launching system, demonstrating the ability to integrate the system to engage a target at sea.
U.S. Navy
Naval News, a specialist outlet, pointed out that a variant of the MK 70 launching system is being used for the U.S. Army midrange Capability, a land-based missile system also known as Typhon.
The Typhon launcher, which is also capable of firing the Standard Missile 6 and the Tomahawk, has been deployed to the northern Philippines since April, putting targets in the southern and eastern China, the South China Sea, and the Taiwan Strait within the sights of the land-attack Tomahawk.
Both the 3,500-metric-ton Freedom-class and the 3,000-metric-ton Independence class ships are designed for operating near the shore, capable of reaching over 40 knots. The U.S. Navy said the ships can defeat asymmetrical threats such as mines, quiet diesel submarines, and fast surface craft.
According to the USNI News, the U.S. Navy plans to operate a total of 25 littoral combat ships, of which 15 are the Independence-class that will be used as mine sweepers, while the rest of them are the Freedom class that will have specialized mission packages for conducting surface warfare.
