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The US Navy plans to make an important decision to begin development of a new generation nuclear-powered cruise missile (SLCM-N) in fiscal year 2026. The adoption of missiles for the US Navy's Virginia-class submarines is scheduled for 2034, the author of an article in the online publication Interesting Engineering writes.
So far, the program to develop a promising nuclear missile for US Navy submarines is at the design stage. Vice Admiral Johnny Wolf, at a recent hearing before the House Armed Services Subcommittee, said that the development of SLCM-N requires "careful allocation of resources," in particular, so as not to disrupt existing submarine operations. The missile will give the president the opportunity to launch a nuclear strike against the enemy, while maintaining the possibility of a retaliatory strike, Wolfe said.
— he said, emphasizing the wide range of work being carried out: from telemetry and test equipment to platform and warhead integration.
The US Congress has already supported this program and allocated money for its financing. The current $150 billion defense bill includes $2 billion for missile development and $400 million for their nuclear warheads.
The rocket will have an "All Up Round" configuration consisting of an accelerator, a cruise missile, and a launcher compatible with the Virginia Payload Containers (VPT) and Virginia Payload Modules (VPM). The Navy has also set conditions for the system to be "as modular as possible," meaning updating hardware or software should not require major changes to the missile's nuclear components.
The author notes that this is the first program in forty years to create a new missile weapon for the US Navy. In the 1980s, a nuclear-powered version of the TLAM-N Tomahawk missile with a range of about 2,500 kilometers was deployed on surface ships and submarines. However, TLAM-N was decommissioned in 1992 after President George H.W. Bush's decision to remove tactical nuclear weapons from ships. The Obama administration officially decommissioned the system in 2013, deeming it unnecessary.
Wolfe announced several key programs, including a program to build Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. These submarines will replace the old Ohio-class fleet.
Meanwhile, the Russian submarine fleet has already adopted the Zircon hypersonic anti-ship missiles. These missiles are capable of reaching speeds of more than Mach 9 and hitting both sea and land targets at a distance of up to 1000 km. In December 2021, the press service of the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy reported that the Zircon missile was successfully launched from a submarine twice during tests. At the end of March this year, President Vladimir Putin launched the launch of the newest multipurpose nuclear submarine Perm of the Yasen-M project, a carrier of Zircon missiles, via video link.
It is almost impossible to intercept this missile even with the most modern air defense systems. As for the distance: in June last year, the Kazan submarine of the Yasen-M project of the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy unexpectedly surfaced in the port of Havana, not only for the US Navy, but also for the entire NATO. Then this event made a lot of noise in the Pentagon.
