The United States is amassing an arsenal of abundant and easily made anti-ship weapons as part of American efforts to deter China in the Indo-Pacific region and gear up U.S. forces there.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has pushed U.S. thinking toward a new philosophy - "affordable mass," as one missile industry CEO put it, speaking on condition of anonymity, referring to having plenty of relatively cheap weapons at the ready.
"It's a natural counter to what China has been doing," said Euan Graham, a senior analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank, referring to the Chinese arsenal of ships and conventional ballistic missiles including those designed to attack vessels.
The Pentagon and China's Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The United States has ramped up testing of its QUICKSINK weapon, an inexpensive and potentially plentiful bomb equipped with a low-cost GPS guidance kit and a seeker that can track moving objects. The U.S. Air Force used a B-2 stealth bomber during a test last month in the Gulf of Mexico to strike a target ship with QUICKSINK.
China will still have a large advantage in sheer numbers of anti-ship missiles, according to experts, and can base them on its home territory. But increasing U.S. production of QUICKSINK would narrow that gap by putting China's 370 or so warships at more risk during any future conflict than they have faced since before Beijing leaned into modernizing its military in the 1990s.
QUICKSINK, still in development, is made by Boeing, with a seeker from BAE Systems. QUICKSINK can be used with the hundreds of thousands of Joint-Direct Attack Munition tail kits - systems that can be dropped from U.S. or allied warplanes and cheaply turn "dumb" 2,000-pound (900-kg) bombs into guided weapons.
The U.S. military's Indo-Pacific Command wants thousands of the QUICKSINK weapons - and has for years - according to an industry executive, who declined to reveal the precise figure because it is classified.
With enough "affordable mass" weapons aimed at them, Chinese ship defenses would be overwhelmed, according to this executive, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In such a scenario, the U.S. military would use Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM) or SM-6 missiles to damage a Chinese warship and its radars, then bombard the vessel with lower-cost weapons such as QUICKSINK.
A VARIETY OF WEAPONS
The United States has been amassing a variety of anti-ship weapons in Asia. In April, the U.S. Army deployed its new Typhon mobile missile batteries, which were developed cheaply from existing components and can fire SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles against sea targets, to the Philippines during an exercise.
Such weapons are relatively easy to produce - drawing on large stockpiles and designs that have been around for a decade or more - and could help the United States and its allies catch up quickly in an Indo-Pacific missile race in which China has a big lead.
Although the U.S. military has declined to say how many will be deployed in the Indo-Pacific region, more than 800 SM-6 missiles are due to be bought in the next five years, according to government documents outlining military purchases. Several thousand Tomahawks and hundreds of thousands of JDAMs are already in U.S. inventories, the documents showed.
"China's game is to restrict the movement of U.S. Navy assets in the Western Pacific and First Island Chain," Graham said, referring to the closest major archipelagos from the coast of East Asia. "This is a sort of like-minded response to make life difficult for the PLAN."
PLAN is short for the People's Liberation Army Navy, China's maritime service branch.
Placing anti-ship weapons in locations such as the Philippines would put them within reach of much of the South China Sea. China claims 90% of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory, but is opposed by five Southeast Asian states and Taiwan.
Collin Koh, a scholar at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said, "In a way it is like leveling the playing field."
Koh cited the example of Iran-aligned Houthi forces using low-tech anti-ship weapons against civilian traffic in the Red Sea, which forced the United States and others to deploy costly weapons to defend against them.
"If you look at the case of the Red Sea, clearly the cost equation (of anti-ship missiles) doesn't fall on the side of the defender," Koh said. "Even if you have a smaller arsenal of such offensive missile systems, you can still project some deterrence."
© Thomson Reuters 2024.
24 Comments
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Christopher
China-Don't tread on me. I can see 370 new corral reefs at the bottom of the Pacific. If push comes to shove.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Hopefully the Ukraine debacle means everyone is focused on a whole of industry approach to missile manufacture. Even the Philippines and Japan can be in on it. There is no need for high tech when you don't have the low tech backing it up.
ian
No need for those if China just rams and blocks opposing ships.
Anyway why is JT running this story and not about the Philippines and Sabina shoal.
Fighto!
All the very best to the QUICKSINK programme. I would expect like-minded allies such as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines. Australia and more to collaborate.
Yrral
Fightoo, America will.never go to war with China
Yrral
The US is negotiating with the Houthis, because they have plan to defeat them Google US Houthis Negotiating
RichardPearce
The US military has gone from mocking Iran's weapons to trying to mimic them.
But it faces some big hurdles.
The first is the clash between the underlying philosophy of cheap, plentiful, cutting edge weapons and it's entire weapons development and supply system.
The second is the long, vulnerable supply chain between it's factories and it's far flung military.
The third is that when it comes to 'strategic sciences' it is falling behind on the basic research as well as having spent the last half century building the exactly wrong sort of infrastructure to convert that sort of research into these sorts of weapons.
Or, to put it another way, they've got a massive series of Sumo wrestling schools, and almost no Judo ones. And have discovered that they need the opposite.
Peter14
YrralToday 06:38 pm JST
But China might go to war with America. It already fought America in the Korean conflict by its own choice. The US does not get to pick who will attack it or when. Remember Pearl Harbor.
America wont start it, but it does have the capacity to end it, at least for now.
ian
Seems like it.
Philippines left to fend for itself again and might have lost another shoal permanently
Peter Neil
i think the world is underestimating the possibility of these weapons being used.
the brazen and escalating chinese naval aggression in the south china sea, and the ridiculous claims of chinese territorial waters is dangerous because of undisciplined actions by shipboard crews.
this is just like an infected wound. the longer it is ignored, the worse the outcome by waiting, allowing it to fester. patience is not a virtue in this case.
the whole of asia needs to stand up to china on this issue sooner rather than later.
M3M3M3
It makes sense, but it misses the underlying reason the US shifted to ultra-hightech weapons in the first place. After Vietnam, it became obvious that the US public lacks the stomach to absorb the huge losses inherent to low-tech combat, especially in a foreign conflict.
Desert Tortoise
Under certain circumstances, yes we would and we have been preparing for over 15 years for possible confrontation. I'm part of that.
Desert Tortoise
Nope. That's not the reason. The reason lies in the post WWII USAF Strategic Bombing Survey. In WWII the Army Air Corps would send in formations of 400 - 800 heavy bombers to attack a target and was lucky to get a handful of bombs on target. Free fall bombs are very inaccurate and in WWII they were dropping them from high altitudes, forcing them to release their bombs as much as 7 miles before they flew over the target. The bombs would follow a ballistic trajectory to the ground. The great majority missed and the few that did hit didn't do enough damage to destroy the target. The Germans would usually have their factories or refineries up and running in a week or less after an Allied attack.
With precision weapons however, instead of sending fleets of hundreds of bombers to attack one target, you can now load four big precision guided bombs on something like an F-15E or F/A-18E and accurately hit (and destroy) four separate targets. Now instead of flying 800 sorties to hit one target, you can fly one sortie to hit four targets. You get a lot more out of your air power that way. One F-15E can do more militarily useful damage than a fleet of B-24s could when you consider most of what those old B-24s and B-17s hit were not the target but everything around the target, often kilometers around.
Desert Tortoise
The US has made multiple offers to assist the Philippines Coast Guard. One such offer was made as recently as two weeks ago during the debrief at the conclusion of an exercise, but the Philippine government is refusing US help. The Philippine's stated position is that they won't ask for US help unless and until the crew on that grounded landing ship is starving. Until that point is reached they say they want to handle the situation with their own means.
Desert Tortoise
Some years ago I was talking to an F/A-18 pilot about the efficacy of certain weapons against large warships like aircraft carriers. At the end of that discussion this fighter pilot said something that really surprised me coming from a fighter jock. He said it might not matter because US submarines won't leave them much left to sink. I chew on that thought often.
Desert Tortoise
Once the point is reached that weapons like QuickSink are employed the US and China would be in an unrestricted naval war. They are not weapons that would be employed outside of a major war.
Strangerland
I think the idiots fail to understand that Mutually Assured Destruction works both ways.
Strange how they feel that the west, infinitely more powerful, should be afraid of the weapons of Putin and Xi.
TokyoLiving
The more the US hen house becomes agitated, the more they demonstrate their fear, despair and weakness..
TaiwanIsNotChina
The Philippines is keeping the US out of the conflict. Whether that is smart or not remains to be seen...
TaiwanIsNotChina
Since Russia and Iran have shown what low tech can do in a war unconcerned about human rights violations, yes, we will have to resurrect some of that cheaper technology we invented.
Private industry does exist and since it is low tech, will not be a problem to stand up.
It will be an away game for sure, a battle over Taiwan, but China will have the added challenge of trying to enforce a blockade.
You don't need to research dirt simple guide kits and drones and we invented this stuff.
You don't need to train to be a judo master to deal with poor countries like Iran and Russia, you just need to buy the off the shelf drone kit.
ian
Really?
The US made an offer to escort Philippine ships for the resupply mission?
That would have been big and heavily publicized.
Care to quote the offer?
ian
Any case the ship assigned at Sabina shoal withdrew because apparently crew were sick and starving
stormcrow
A good defense is a good offense.
ian
Seems there were efforts to suppress the news about the Philippines abandoning Sabina shoal.
Not covered here in JT even though it's a hot topic. Didn't see in mainichi and asahi ahimbun either. Japan times did cover it though