Over at Commander Salamander’s Substack there’s an interesting article on more US Navy problems, this time with simple missile replenishment, focusing especially on the SM-3 surface-to-air missiles, which are the main weapons used for intercepting ballistic missiles, as they have been recently against the Iranian shots at Israel.

He links to another well known blog, The War Zone, for further explanation of these missiles, which the graph above shows are constantly being enhanced, with another chart at the link detailing what those are with the usual engineering definitions of Block IB, IIA, etc:

SM-3 series interceptors…can engage ballistic missiles outside of the Earth’s atmosphere during the mid-course portion of their flight. SM-3s are hit-to-kill weapons that release a “kill vehicle” in the final stages of an intercept that then physically manuevers to smash into the target. SM-3s have demonstrated their capabilities against various tiers of ballistic missiles in testing, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and one was also used to destroy an out-of-control U.S. spy satellite in 2008. 

They performed as advertised (thank you Ronald Reagan) last month against Israel-bound Iranian ballistic missiles, but there’s a couple of big problems with them.

The first problem is that, while nobody knows how many of these were shot off recently, Salamander’s sources are reporting that it’s in excess of annual US production, which should not surprise as he shows the Defence Budget line items listing only double-digit annual production of the IIA and IB types over the next few years (12 for the IB and 30’s-40’s for the IIA)

The second problem is around the logistics of re-arming with these missiles:

An Arleigh Burke DDG has 90 or 96 VLS cells. Depending on what they think they will face, they will have a mix of SM-2, SM-3, SM-6, ESSM, and ASROC. Though we are trying, we cannot reload VLS at sea yet, so once you are Winchester on the missile you need for the threat at hand, you are little more than a show-pony.

His article goes on to focus on the fact that the Chinese have thousands of ballstic missiles and are working hard on making them more accurate so that they can hit ships at sea. When you read details of how hard it was for bombers, even dive-bombers, to hit moving ships from above in WWII – hence the focus on torpedoes – there’s room for skepticism that this can work for the Chinese, as opposed to cruise or hypersonic missiles. But clearly they’re trying and the miracle of electronic sensors, in-flight manueverable warheads and the targeting software to drive it, means they’re confident they can get there.

But it was another aspect of the recent shoot-out that is of immediate concern. Israel has made no secret of the the fact that it’s been developing weapons specifically to destroy the Iranian nuclear programmes, and those efforts are likely accelerating as Iran gets closer to a nuke. The Israeli effort goes back at least twenty years.

There’s mundane stuff like conformal fuel tanks that enable greater range for F-15 and F-16 fighters to the F-35, without ruining the latter’s stealth capabilities. Then there are the weapons they’ll use like the Rampage and Rocks air-to-surface missiles that are supersonic and with ranges of hundreds of miles, which means they might not even have to get their planes inside Iranian air defences. They’ve also developed at least one bunker-busting bomb, named 500 MPR, capable of penetrating up to four metres of concrete, and you’d have to wonder if there are others, given the reluctance of the Americans to provide such weapons.

That last is a typical aspect of what the US has been doing for years to Israel to try and hold them back, emphasised during the recent actions against Hamas and Hezbollah as the USA has issued similar denials and threats that they’ll deny weapon replenishment to Israel. To which the Israeli response is, “Well, what do we do then?”, (despite now having a clear casus belli to attack Iran) to which the US reply has been “Just play defence and we’ll help you with that”.

Which they have done via the Aegis ships. Except now, with the ships at sea having shot their wad and re-arming involving the time to return to port – as well as those possible production issues – the USA has trapped itself in a corner for keeping that promise and thus restraining Israel. And so:

At the direction of the President, Secretary Austin authorized the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and associated crew of U.S. military personnel to Israel to help bolster Israel’s air defenses following Iran’s unprecedented attacks against Israel on April 13 and again on October 1. The THAAD Battery will augment Israel’s integrated air defense system.

Understand that the US has just seven THAAD batteries, each consisting of six truck-mounted launchers, with eight interceptors apiece and about 100 soldiers to operate it – 100 American soldiers who are now boots-on-the-ground in Israel, with all that implies about America getting deeper and deeper into yet another foreign war, in this case a particularly nasty war with global, strategic implications:

Compared to having a couple of DDG off the coast, having US Army forces as active participants on the ground is an escalation in our participation in helping Israel defend herself. It does not matter if you think that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is reality. It narrows options and increases risks. Ground forces have a very different vibe than capabilities at sea.

In other words a tactical weakness – the lack of Navy SM-3 missile interceptors and re-arming issues – has led to a strategic mistake. I doubt if either side wanted US troops on the ground in Israel.

Salamander finishes off with some chilling thoughts regarding the Chinese:

How many years of production of SM-3 would we expend in the first 24-96 hours? What will be left at D+7? D+15? How do we distribute these between our ships? If we have a DDG that is loaded for a TLAM mission that needs to replace a DDG that is Winchester while doing a AMB mission, how long will that take? Where will it take place? Is there a primary, backup, and ready spare capability in theater?

Where will we put our six THAAD batteries if the seventh is in Israel? How many of those six can/should we base west of the International Date Line?

Is there a plan to drastically increase production of the SM-3 IIA? Can we drastically increase production, not just for us, but for our allies who want them too?

America is far below the era of having “six identical copies of the USS We Built This Yesterday”.

Oh, and the interest bill on their debt has now exceeded their defense spending, as forecast years ago.

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See Also:
A new military world? (The USA can do something right)
Will America lose its next war?
“The U.S. military is in a state of managed decline”