Tomahawk's moving target capability tested

Raytheon and the US Navy have successfully tested the moving target capability of the Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile, the company announced on 11 February.

Two flight tests were conducted on 27 and 28 January. In the first test, the Tomahawk was fired and synthetically guided to hit a mobile ship target. In the second test, a second Tomahawk was fired on a call-for-fire mission to demonstrate its reduced mission planning time.

For the first test, the missile was fired from the destroyer USS Kidd with a pre-planned mission. A surveillance aircraft then sent real-time target information to the Joint Network Enabled Weapons Mission Management Capability (JNEW-MMC) at the weapons division of the naval air warfare centre, China Lake.

The JNEW-MMC then sent the updated target information to the missile before it struck the target. This demonstration is the first step in evolving the Tomahawk missile with improved network capability and extending its reach to moving targets.