Tomahawk | Cruise Missile, History, Uses & Capabilities (2024)

FAQs

Tomahawk | Cruise Missile, History, Uses & Capabilities? ›

Tomahawk cruise missiles are designed to fly at extremely low altitudes at high subsonic speeds, and are piloted over an evasive route by several mission tailored guidance systems. The first operational use was in Operation Desert Storm, 1991, with immense success.

The Tomahawk is an all-weather, long-range cruise missile capable of being launched from more than 140 U. S. Navy surface ships and submarines for land attack warfare. It can precisely strike high value or heavily defended land targets.

In the 1991 Gulf War, 288 Tomahawks were launched, 12 from submarines and 276 from surface ships. The first salvo was fired by the destroyer USS Paul F. Foster on January 17, 1991.

These missiles achieved an 85 percent success rate. The Block 2 version of this missile has a range of 1,300 km when ship-launched and 925 km when submarine-launched. Its accuracy was dramatically improved to less than 10 m CEP.

The Tomahawk cruise missile has been in service since the 1980s but continuously upgraded to the new Block V variants, which includes an anti-ship missile capability.

The term came into the English language in the 17th century as an adaptation of the Powhatan (Virginian Algonquian) word. Tomahawks were general-purpose tools used by Native Americans and later the European colonials with whom they traded, and often employed as a hand-to-hand weapon.

The word tomahawk was derived from the Alogonquin word “Tomahak” or “Tomahakan,” meaning “used for cutting.” The Native Americans made tomahawks with stone heads attached to wooden handles, secured with rawhide and sinew. It was a general-purpose tool used for chopping, cutting, and even used as a weapon.

According to a report from the US Navy , as of 2021 , there are approximately 4,000 Tomahawk missiles in the Navy 's inventory . These advanced cruise missiles are capable of precision strikes on targets up to 1,000 miles away , making them a crucial component of the Navy 's arsenal .

A tomahawk, or war club, was the favorite weapon of the Native Americans during the revolutionary war. These traditional hatchets were often made of stone and wood and could be used for a variety of purposes. They were useful in hand-to-hand combat, could be thrown short distances, and were often used as tools.

Tomahawks, therefore, serve as the Navy's primary land-attack capability without putting aviators at risk. While the Navy does have a large existing stockpile of Tomahawks to sustain its land-attack capability, it has recently been firing the missiles faster than it can replace them.

Can a Tomahawk missile carry a nuke? ›

Tomahawks can also use their onboard cameras to transmit battle-damage assessment data back to military analysts. Submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles entered service in 1983 with conventional (i.e., nonnuclear) land-attack and antiship missile variants, as well as with a land-attack missile carrying a nuclear warhead.

Operational missiles are launched by a solid-fueled booster rocket and carried to their target by a turbofan jet engine. The Tomahawk flies near the surface at 550 mph and uses satellite-assisted navigation and TERCOM (Terrain Contour Matching) radar to guide it to a target up to approximately 1,500 miles distant.

Flight I and II Arleigh Burke class destroyers have 90 VLS cells; Flight IIA ships have 96 VLS cells. Each cell can be loaded with a Tomahawk or an SM-2 or an SM-3 or a VL-ASROC or an EARAM or 4 ESSM. So, the answer is between 0 and 90 or between 0 and 96. Realistically, I think they usually carry about 16 Tomahawks.

Although Tomahawk is still viable it will probably be obsolete in 2030 timeframe. That's why US Navy has started the program for Tomahawk replacement called the NGLAW ( next generation land attack weapon).

The missile can reach a distance of 700 to 1350 nautical miles depending on which variant of the missile is fired. The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is an all-weather, long range, subsonic cruise missile used for deep land attack warfare.

The Tomahawk cruise missile is a precision weapon that launches from ships, submarines, and ground launchers and can strike targets precisely from 1,000 miles away, even in heavily defended airspace.

A well-designed tactical tomahawk can be used for: Chopping (including through doors and locks) Cutting. Digging.

This is a North Amercian pipe tomahawk of the late 19th century. An ingenious combination of smoking pipe and weapon, it was used in trade and diplomatic agreements between the white settlers and the Native tribes.