Navy’s wants to turn its AIM-174B missile into a hypersonic weapons killer

The U.S. Navy is looking to turn its newest air-to-air missile, the massive AIM-174B Gunslinger, into an air-launched hypersonic weapon interceptor by using a new warhead designed for “area effects.” 

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency just published a new solicitation to industry, looking to develop, test, and field a new series of warheads designed specifically for hypersonic missile defense, using what it describe as “wide area effect concepts.” This request is specifically for warheads – and not for new weapon systems – with the intent to field service-ready capabilities that can be easily integrated into America’s existing air defense apparatus. 

But don’t let that fool you: Despite the Navy’s plug-and-play intentions, the addition of such a warhead to the AIM-174B could create an air defense capability unmatched by any system or platform. This could be done by effectively turning F/A-18 Super Hornets into roving air-defense assets capable of bringing down inbound hypersonic missiles. 

The Gunslinger is already a uniquely capable weapon, with an extremely large 140–pound high explosive warhead (that’s more than three times the size of the AMRAAM’s and nearly seven times the size of the Sidewinder’s) and a maximum engagement range that may exceed 300 miles, making it one of the farthest-reaching air-to-air missiles on the planet. This weapon has such significant reach, in fact, that it’s meant to gather target data from multiple sources while closing with enemy aircraft, as the missile reaches farther out than the launching fighter’s radar can see. 

Based directly on the ship-launched SM-6 interceptor, this massive air-to-air missile stretches nearly 15.5 feet long, with a roughly 13.5 inches diameter and a total weight of 1,900 pounds. That makes it nearly two feet longer and about 900 pounds heavier than the legendary AIM-54 Phoenix missile that once equipped the Navy’s F-14 Tomcats, while boasting the ability to reach targets potentially more than three times farther away. 

The AIM-174B and the SM-6 it’s based on were built for much more than long-distance engagements alone. They carry an enlarged radar seeker derived from the one found inside the AMRAAM, along with the datalink necessary for midcourse target updates. They sufficient propulsion to close with targets at Mach 3.5 and a combination of tail fins and canards that allow for extreme aerobatic maneuvers. As a result, in its surface-launched form (which uses a Mk 72 rocket booster to iniially get airborne) the weapon is rated for a vast array of intercepts, ranging from sea-skimming supersonic cruise missiles to just about any fixed or rotary wing aircraft and even medium-range ballistic missiles in their terminal phases of flight. 

The weapon is so effective at intercepting fast-moving and maneuverable targets that it is currently considered to be the only air defense interceptor in the world that’s rated to bring down modern hypersonic missiles, at least, in the right set of circumstances. And if all that wasn’t enough, it also has a secondary capability to strike surface targets like enemy warships or ground facilities. 

Given the weapon’s wide array of capabilities, the Navy opted to mount it on F/A-18 Super Hornets to not only dramatically increase its potential engagement ranges but, with the development of new area-effect warheads, provide airborne hypersonic missile defense capabilities for carrier strike groups and other assets. 

The F/A-18 Super Hornet, which is currently the only fighter known to carry the Gunslinger, has an unclassified combat radius – the distance it can fly out, deploy weapons, and make it back on internal fuel alone – of around 511 miles. Yet, the aircraft’s combat radius is considerably less when it carries a full loadout of AIM-174Bs, AIM-120s, and AIM-9s.

Nonetheless, these fighters could orbit the carrier strike group – bolstered by the refueling capabilities of other Super Hornets and soon, the MQ-25 Stingray drone refueler – and at the earliest sign of an inbound hypersonic missile launch their AIM-174Bs from farther out than the Navy’s SM-6s, creating what amounts to a second or even third layer of hypersonic air defense between adversary and aircraft carrier. Air defense is never a sure thing, least of all when dealing with maneuvering hypersonic weapons, so this could be a vital capability. 

This could also allow the Navy to scramble fighters for hypersonic missile defense over or around other high-value targets on extremely short notice, creating temporary barriers over the battlefield until ground-based systems can be repositioned to take over the job. This could be particularly important in rapidly escalating situations as something of a hypersonic stopgap in far-flung theaters. 

But in order to be really effective, the massive 140-pound warhead carried by both the SM-6 and AIM-174B must be turned into a more “area effect” oriented weapon. These warheads are already designed to create a large blast radius to bring down airborne targets, but a payload designed to increase that radius while maintaining enough force to take a Mach 20 missile out of the sky would dramatically improve the weapon’s chances at a successful shoot-down. 

Feature Image: An AIM-174B missile on an F/A-18 jet. (Photo by Hunini/Wikimedia Commons)

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