U.S. Navy\'s New Air-Launched SM-6: A Significant Upgrade in Aerial Warfare

An air-launched SM-6? Yes, please! The more of them the better. This week the news broke—and the U.S. Navy officially confirmed—that weapons engineers have successfully mated the latest version of the venerable Standard family of shipboard surface-to-air missiles to carrier-borne F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter/attack jets.

The U.S. Navy has successfully integrated the SM-6 missile onto carrier-based F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, a major advancement that significantly extends the aircraft's air-to-air engagement range. Designated as the AIM-174B, this air-launched variant of the SM-6 enhances the Navy's combat capabilities in the context of anti-air and surface warfare.

The operational deployment of the AIM-174B is expected to be tested during the RIMPAC exercises, showcasing its advanced capabilities. This move aligns with the Navy's ongoing efforts to counter growing threats from adversaries like China and strengthen its strategic position.

The integration of the SM-6 onto Super Hornets marks a substantial boost to the carrier air wing's combat punch. The range of the AIM-120D Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), currently used by U.S. carrier aviation, is reported to be around 100 miles. The ship-launched SM-6 boasts a range well in excess of 200 miles. Firing the missile from an aircraft streaking across the sky would further bolster its launch velocity and presumably its range.

A reasonable guesstimate would be that the AIM-174B will boast a range somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 miles—triple the AMRAAM's striking reach.

Imagery emerging from the Pacific theater shows a Super Hornet attached to Carrier Air Wing 2 on board USS Carl Vinson sporting the new missile. Carl Vinson is participating in the ongoing multinational Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise, where Navy leadership may elect to test the repurposed weapon. However, these tests will likely be conducted in ways designed to conceal its true capabilities from adversaries.

The U.S. and fraternal armed forces have sunk or plan to sink five retired hulks in target practice this summer. The air-launched SM-6 could get a piece of the action.

There are both upsides and downsides to publicly testing gee-whiz weaponry. Selective disclosure of capabilities can be a persuasive messaging tool, helping cow rivals while consoling allies, partners, and friends. It conveys prowess, convincing others that the force doing the disclosing would be the likely victor should battle ensue. That being the case, rational antagonists should forego aggression while partners take heart. Indiscriminate disclosure betrays advantages (or technical defects or quirks) best kept secret till the time and place of battle.

But there's more to the AIM-174B/SM-6 than air-to-air warfare. In fact, if the United States, its allies, and its partners manage to outcompete China and other potential foes in the coming years, the SM-6 will be a worthy nominee for the contest's MVP.

Not that many years ago, commentators like your humble scribe fretted over the state of surface warfare—meaning ship-on-ship warfare—in the U.S. Navy. That's because the sea service rested on its laurels following the Cold War. Service chieftains and their political masters talked themselves into believing victory over the Soviet Union was forever. There was no peer challenger now that the Soviet Navy sat rusting at its moorings. Nor, proclaimed naval leaders, was a new challenger coming.

Naval history had ended.

Once that conviction took hold, the service saw little need to prepare to fight for maritime command. Directives from on high announced that the fleet could and should let surface warfare, anti-air warfare, and anti-submarine warfare—hardware and skills necessary to duel a peer navy for supremacy—languish. And so it did. The navy retired an ultra-long-range Tomahawk anti-ship missile, went back to relying on elderly short-range Harpoon anti-ship missiles, and ultimately stopped equipping its surface combatants even with those.

Meanwhile, China put a premium on range as it built a great navy and outfitted it lavishly with anti-ship missiles.

Until recent years, as a result, the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) battle fleet outranged the U.S. Navy fleet by a wide margin. In naval warfare as in boxing, advantages go to the rangier pugilist. Even if PLA Navy weaponry remained inferior, the range mismatch granted Chinese rocketeers the option to aim haymakers at their American foe long before that foe closed to Harpoon range. Some of that ordnance could get through if delivered in sufficient volume—enfeebling the U.S. fleet before it could return fire. At a minimum PLA Navy volleys would compel U.S. warships to expend precious missiles in self-defense—depleting their arsenals through sustained assault.

To its credit, the U.S. Navy and Pentagon leadership belatedly realized the fleet had a problem owing to China's upstart armada. Senior leadership set in motion crash missile-development programs

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