The destroyer or cruiser is tied to a pier a crane, support equipment and personnel are on the pier and one by one they lift missile canisters from the pier, then slowly lower them into the launcher cells on the ship. Rearming a ship today can only take place in select ports. “The swift introduction of a capability to rearm VLS at sea or at anchorage would have a major impact on operational effectiveness.” Mixed success in tech development Navy is increasingly focused on identifying low-cost, high-impact options that can quickly boost the operational effectiveness of the fleet and joint force,” he added. “Viewed in this light, a fleet VLS rearming at sea capability could provide a ‘value’ in equivalent combatants of at least $11-37 billion, and would be a high-return investment for the Navy,” Walton told Defense News. Indeed, Walton wrote in a 2019 study for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments that fielding just two or three ships that could rearm cruisers and destroyers in the Western or Central Pacific would, by getting the Navy’s combatants back on station more quickly, add the equivalent of 18 more cruisers and destroyers in the fleet.

Tim Walton, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, who has written extensively on the topic of rearming at sea, said Del Toro is recognizing “the enormous opportunities of new VLS rearming capabilities.” For the Pacific fleet, these reload sites are in Japan, Guam, Hawaii and California.Īn SM-2 Block III missile is fired out of the forward vertical launching system aboard the destroyer John Finn on Sept. Today, the Navy’s cruisers and destroyers can only load and unload offices at established piers with approved infrastructure. One day, it may even take place in the open ocean, thanks to research and development efforts in support of a top priority for the secretary of the Navy.Ĭarlos Del Toro is eyeing this rearm-at-sea capability as one of a handful of steps the service must take to prepare for conflict in the Pacific other steps include strengthening logistics capabilities and identifying foreign shipyards that could conduct repairs to battle-damaged ships.

This demonstration took place while the destroyer Spruance was tied to the pier at Naval Air Station North Island, as a first step in creating a more expeditionary rearming capability.īut in the near future, that same evolution between a warship and an auxiliary vessel could take place in any harbor or protected waters around the globe.

It’s also a maneuver the Navy cannot yet do at sea.

Joint capabilities requirements manager