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| Raytheon Makes 111 New Block V Tomahawk Missiles Equipped with GPS and Terrain Guidance Systems |
International Military - Raytheon Technologies Corp built 111 Tomahawk Block V BGM-109 missiles capable of striking land and sea targets. The manufacture of this Tomahawk missile was ordered by the United States Navy (USNavy) worth USD 171 million.
The Tomahawk is a long-range, all-weather, jet-powered, subsonic cruise missile used primarily by the US and UK navies. The Tomahawk missile is used in ship- and submarine-based ground attack operations, and can also be launched from the ground.
Naval Air Systems command officers at Patuxent River Naval Air Station commissioned Raytheon Missiles & Defense to manufacture 111 Tomahawk Block V Tactical vertical launch system missiles. Of these, 50 are for the US Army, 48 for the US Navy, and 13 for the US Marine Corps.
Quoted from the militaryaerospace page, Tuesday (20/12/2022), Tomahawk Block V is the latest version, and is an upgraded Tomahawk Block IV, which has a data link that allows the missile to change targets while in flight. The missile can also roam for hours and change course instantly on command.
The Tomahawk Block V missile is a re-certified and modernized missile with improved navigation and communications. Block Va can engage mobile targets at sea, while Block Vb has a multi-effect warhead that can engage land targets.
Block V Tomahawk missile introduced in 2021 with in-flight navigation and targeting improvements. Block Va, the Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST), enables the missile to engage moving targets at sea, and Block Vb is equipped with a Joint Multiple Effects Warhead System (JMEWS) warhead for hard target penetration.
The Tomahawk Block V missile has a longer range and dynamic targeting than its predecessor, and has unique flight, launch and information processing capabilities. Raytheon was able to quickly integrate the new sensor suite into the Tactical Tomahawk.
The company provided new seekers, processors, software, and inertial measurement units for terminal maneuverability, as well as redesigned system power and cooling budgets. For navigation and guidance, it uses a combination of inertial, GPS, and terrain matching using electro-optical sensors and radar-to-terrain altimeters.
The US Army wants the Tomahawk missile as an Intermediate Range Capability Weapon System (MRC) to deal with the increasing range and complexity of Chinese and Russian artillery. The MRC is intended to bridge the capability gap between the Precision Strike Missile with a maximum range of 483 kilometers and the development of the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon system with a maximum range of 2,776 kilometers.