SM-6 Typhon Mid-Range Capability (MRC)
The Typhon [not Typhoon] multi-purpose system includes launchers and fire control systems nearly identical to the Mk-41 Aegis ashore anti-missile system that the US has stationed in Poland and Romania. The Typhon will employ modified SM-6 surface-to-air missiles currently used by the US Navy, which would be employed in a surface-to-surface role, as well as ground-attack versions of the Navy’s Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile.
The original Typhon weapon system program, a ship-launched anti-aircraft missile with a surface target capability, was the forerunner of AEGIS, and the largest of the Tartar / Terrier / Talos / Typhon family of anti-aircraft missiles. Typhon was begun by the Applied Physics Laboratory in 1957 to develop a missile system impervious to saturation. Typhon was designed to mount a defense-in-depth with medium- and long-range missiles against high-performance airplanes and antiship missiles whether launched by surface ships, submarines, or aircraft. TYPHON proved to be too complex and expensive a project and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara chose to cancel the system. The Guided Missile Frigate (DLGN), designed around the "TYPHON" missile system, was requested in the FY 1963 shipbuilding program, but was deleted with the cancellation of the "TYPHON" system. Typhon ultimately resulted in the Standard Missile system: a weapon that could, by varying only the propulsion, serve the fleet as both a medium- and long-range missile. This latest application of the designation Typhon restores this name to the place it occupied more than half a century ago.
A character in Greek mythology, Typhon, the son of Tartarus and Gaea, was a giant who dared to make war on heaven. After the Titans were defeated, Gaia put forth one last effort to drive the Olympians away. To do this, she sent the largest and most terrifying creature she could think of in order to defeat them – her son, Typhon. His role was to challenge the gods and eventually defeat them. For this offense, the angry Jupiter hurled him to earth and buried him beneath Mt. Etna. Typhon is the prevailing power, as both Plato and Aristotle insinuate, to whom appertaineth nothing of a lucid or salutary nature, nor order, nor generation, nor motion attended with measure. They make all bad and noxious things — whether animals, plants or passions — to be the works, the members, and the motions of Typhon. Hesiod, when he makes the first things of all to be chaos, earth, hell, and love, may be thought to take up no other principles than these, to apply these names as already disposed, to wit, that of earth to Isis, that of love to Osiris, and that of hell to Typhon; for he seems to lay the chaos under all, as a kind of room or place for the world to lie in. Not without great consonancy did the aancients fable that the soul of Osiris is eternal and incorruptible, but that his body is often torn in pieces and destroyed by Typhon, and that Isis wanders to and fro to look him out, and when she hath found him, puts him together again.
The passionate, Titanic, irrational, and brutal part of the soul is Typhon; and what in the corporeal nature is adventitious, morbid, and tumultuous (as irregular seasons, distemperatures of air, eclipses of the sun, and disappearings of the moon) is, as it were, the incursions and devastations of Typhon. And the name of Seth, by which they call Typhon, declares as much ; for it denotes a domineering and compelling power, and also very often an overturning, and again a leaping over. There are also some that say that Bebon was one of Typhon's companions; but Manetho saith, Typhon himself was called Bebon. Now that name signifies restraining and hindering; as who should say, “while all things march along in a regular course and move steadily toward their natural end, the power of Typhon stands in their way and stops them.”
The Mid-Range Capability (MRC), part of the Army’s number one modernization priority of Long-Range Precision Fires, will be designed to hit targets in the 1000 mile / 1800 km range between the Precision Strike Missile and the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon. The U.S. Army selected the SM-6 to fulfill its Mid-Range Capability (MRC), giving it a land-based long-range missile The MRC prototype, consisting of launchers, missiles, and a battery operations center (BOC), will be fielded to an operational battery in Fiscal Year 2023.
The MRC addresses a need identified in the Army’s Fiscal Year 2020 Strategic Fires Study in coordination with Combatant Commanders in key theaters. The Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) will develop and deliver the prototype MRC. “Adapting existing systems as much as possible will allow us to move faster than traditional acquisition methods to get this capability into the hands of Soldiers in support of the National Defense Strategy,” said LTG L. Neil Thurgood, Director of Hypersonics, Directed Energy, Space and Rapid Acquisition, who leads the RCCTO. “Soldier feedback and touchpoints will be embedded throughout the prototyping effort in order to make this system operationally effective the day it is delivered.”
he U.S. Army awarded a prototype Other Transaction (OT) agreement to advance its development and delivery of a ground-launched, mid-range fires capability that will enable the United States to deter, and if necessary, defeat near-peer competitors. On November 6, 2020, the Army awarded the prototype OT agreement on a sole source basis to Lockheed Martin in the amount of $339.3 million, inclusive of options. Lockheed Martin Corp., Baltimore, Maryland, was awarded an Other Transaction Authority agreement with a ceiling of $339,318,582 for the Mid-Range Capability. Work will be performed in Baltimore, Maryland; Akron, Ohio; Clearwater, Florida; Moorestown, New Jersey; Owego, New York; Syracuse, New York; and Orlando, Florida, with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2023. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation, Army funds in the amount of $57,959,033 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, Alexandria, Virginia, is the contracting activity (W50RAJ-2-19-0001).
Under this agreement, Lockheed Martin will design, build, integrate, test, evaluate, document, deliver, and support the MRC prototype battery capability. In order to accelerate fielding to meet the FY23 timeline, the MRC prototype will utilize and modify existing hardware and software from the Army and joint service partners, and integrate additional technologies to achieve new operational effects. Following a broad review of joint service technologies potentially applicable to MRC, the Army has selected variants of the Navy SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles to be part of the initial prototype. The Army will leverage Navy contract vehicles for missile procurement in support of the Army integration OT agreement.
The MRC will complement other critical systems in the Army’s long range fires portfolio, providing a combined operational and strategic capability that can attack specific threat vulnerabilities in order to penetrate, disintegrate and exploit targets in deep maneuver areas critical to the joint fight. The capability also allows the Army and joint services to synchronize and leverage modernization efforts and investments across mid-range missile programs in support of multi-domain operations. The MRC supports one of the Army’s chief roles in multi-domain operations: to use strategic fires to penetrate and disintegrate enemy layered defense systems, creating windows of opportunity for exploitation by the joint force.
In response to media inquiries regarding reports that the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the US Armed Forces will conduct exercises to deploy Typhon medium-range missile systems at the US Marine Corps Base Iwakuni, the first time this system will be deployed on Japanese soil, Zhang Xiaogang, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, said on 28 August 2025 that in recent years, Japan has repeatedly broken the constraints of its "Peace Constitution" and its commitment to "exclusive defense," moving further down the dangerous path of military buildup, causing growing concern that it may return to the path of militarism. This year marked the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. At this important historical juncture, Japan should draw profound lessons from history and act with caution in the field of military security, Zhang said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on 2p August 2025, "We have noted the relevant reports." China has repeatedly expressed its serious concern over the issue and has always firmly opposed the US deployment of the "Typhon" intermediate-range missile system in Asian countries, Guo said. He added that the deployment of such a system in Japan will further undermine the legitimate security interests of other countries and pose a substantive threat to regional strategic security. The US side and the Japanese side should earnestly respect the legitimate security concerns of other countries, refrain from introducing the "Typhon" intermediate-range missile system, and contribute positively to regional peace and stability with concrete actions, Guo said.
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