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Offensive Anti-Surface Weapon

To compete with China’s long-range anti-ship missiles, the US Navy is considering one of two options: forge ahead with the expensive, but state-of-the-art LRASM, or upgrade the Cold War-era Tomahawk.

The Tomahawk is known for attacking stationary targets on land, but except for a short-lived anti-ship variant later withdrawn from service, it had not been used against mobile or floating targets. That changed in January 2015, when a modified Tomahawk punched a hole through a shipping container on the deck of a moving ship. (The test missile didn’t have a live warhead).

The other option is Lockheed Martin’s Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), which the Pentagon’s research arm DARPA called "a leap ahead in US surface warfare capability." The LRASM boasts the capability of operating either independently or with remote guidance, and can survive GPS jamming.

To decide between the two, Aucoin told reporters at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that he wants "a competition to get the best munition."

"What I would like to see happen is take those capabilities that we need and start inserting those into a Block IV [Tomahawk], and [compare that] to what we have with LRASM Increment 1, and have those two compete for the next-generation strike weapon," Aucoin said, according to Breaking Defense.

Tomahawks are relatively cheap, compared to the approximate $2 million price tag for each LRASM. Tomahawks also have a longer range and feature a larger payload. But the LRASMs are durable, and that could prove much more effective against the Chinese Navy.

Even if LRASM and Tomahawk are the main competitors, there are, of course, a couple of other options being considered by the US Navy. "Another option in the mix is [Norwegian firm] Kongsberg’s Naval Strike Missile, which as about the same range and coast as LRASM, but is already in production," Bryan Clark, former top aide to the Chief of Naval Operations, said.

There is also the possible the Pentagon could modify the SM-6 Standard Missile anti-missile defense system to take on offensive capabilities. Still, those cost roughly twice as much as a LRASM, and would only serve as more of a backup in a combat situation.