The New Weapons of Operation Odyssey Dawn

Posted By: John Reed March 21, 2011

The opening salvos of Operation Odyssey Dawn not only harkened the return of high-end fights not seen in years, they also served as the combat debut for several new weapons that didn’t exist the last time the West kicked off a similar adventure.

First, let’s look at the modified Ohio class ballistic missile submarine USS Florida, now dubbed a guided missile submarine or SSGN. Florida was one of three subs and two destroyers firing cruise missiles at Libyan air defense sites and command and control centers at the very beginning of the campaign on Saturday.

Florida and her sister ships USS Ohio, USS Michigan and USS Georgia all started life as Ohio class ballistic missile subs carrying 24 Trident nuclear missiles. Over the last ten years however, the four boats were stripped of their nuclear missiles and 22 of their 24 launch tubes were reconfigured to carry as many as 154 of the much smaller Tomahawk Cruise missiles in circular canisters. The remaining two tubes were converted into wet-lockers meant to launch a team of Navy SEALS and their gear underwater. Those two lockers can even be used to launch remotely operated vehicles. Odyssey Dawn marks the first time the new SSGNs have fired the Tomahawks in anger.

Speaking of Tomahawks, this campaign is the first time the Tomahawk Block IV or TLAM-E has been used against real targets. Both British and American ships carry this latest variant of the near-30 year-old cruise missile. The Block IV has datalinks allowing commanders to have it rerouted in-flight, take pictures of a target area and send them back to command centers and even loiter for a while over a target.

The fighting is also the combat debut of the Eurofighter Typhoons that the Royal Air Force has deployed to participate in the action. The jets are among the most advanced fighters flown by European air forces and can be used for everything from air superiority to ground attack missions.

The Navy’s newest electronic warfare aircraft, the EA-18G Growler also made its combat debut, working to jam Libyan communications and radars while supporting Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier jump jets as they took out Libyan tanks.

So, a quick recap of the weapons that made their combat debut this week:

The guided missile submarine, USS Florida (SSGN-728)
The Block IV Tomahawk cruise missile otherwise known as TLAM-E
The Eurofighter Typhoon jet.
The EA-18G Growler electronic warfare plane

FtD

sounds more like a joint military exercise/weapon testing but using live rounds on live targets….
David A

Don’t forget the Rafale made it’s first shots-in-anger debut as well!
asdf

it actually did so in afg.
Joe America

This is nice for weapons testing, I guess?

The question I have, ” why are we there?”
- Dennis James
  
  I feel as if you sort of answered your own question.
Chan

I guess China will be financing this war just like the other 2 the US is in..
- PolicyWonk
  
  Unlike the war with Iraq, this one only did cost the US less than 1 Billion USD. Pretty cheap, and it paid off quite a bit diplomatically with the Libyans and the arab in the street.
Jacob

Speaking of Tomahawks, how difficult is it to shoot one of these things down in real life? I’ve been playing this naval sim where Tomahawks and other cruise missiles just drop like flies to enemy air defenses.
- http://twitter.com/Earlydawn @Earlydawn
  
  Tomahawks are subsonic and fairly easy targets at the fundamental level, but they fly low and frequently utilize nap-of-the-earth paths to their targets. You need good coverage of your airspace and aircraft with lookdown radar.
  
  I’ve also seen articles that describe AESA radars as fundamentally better for detecting and shooting down cruise missiles, but I’m not sure why.
- blight
  
  Some of the newer ALCMs had low RCS designs, but lacked the range of the Tomahawk.
- Stormcharger
  
  Are we talking sea targets or land targets. Most sims do one or the other well but usually not both. At sea, a potential cruise missile has to contend with systems like CIWS designed to target and eliminate them. On land, a TLAM is not a direct flight weapon and a bit of concideration is taken in plotting the route that it takes to a given target, most importantly not putting it in the sights of a AA system for extended periods of time. So unless your sim allows you to plot a very detailed course for your cruise missiles, then yeah, they’ll get swatted out of the sky by any 30 or 40 year old AAA.
Justin H

No F-22?
- http://twitter.com/Cr4shDummy @Cr4shDummy
  
  No, the Air Force has deemed them too valuable. Plus, they’re no where near the area of operations.
Justin H

There have been deadly crackdowns on civilians in several other middle east nations recently. So why are we attacking only Libya?
- fida
  
  the answer is greed. Libya = Oil. Iraq = Oil. Most Gulf (Oil) areas are already giving up what they have for USA + EU. & of course since Israel is taking up Egyptian & Jordanian shares of Oil, US wants to make sure to get a bigger piece of the cake!
  - Justin H
    
    All of Libya’s exported oil goes to Europe. Last time I checked, Europe was thousands of miles from the U.S
    - Justin H
      
      Same goes with Iraq’s oil
    - Petro-Dollar
      
      And Europeans PAY IT IN DOLLARS.
      Therefore it is about OIL, about PETRO-DOLLARS, about the hegemony of the US, based on the hegemony of US DOLLAR, if Europeans and the world can commerce without dollars, the US is doomed for good. The world is tired of buying worthless dollars just because OIL producers are forced at gun-point to sell only in dollars, if not, War. So, be more careful and open your view more, use logic and don’t run to conclusions too fast.
  - blight
    
    Even if a single barrel of Libyan oil doesn’t go to the states, the global supply is still affected by whether or not Libya is in full production-hence the recent price fluctuations.
  - http://twitter.com/Cr4shDummy @Cr4shDummy
    
    Yeah, that’s why I’m paying $4 a gallon fida!
    
    I’m sure we’d want to spend over $100 million dollars a day just so we can control Libya’s oil… as opposed to just talking to OPEC…
    
    And Justin, the reason primarily is this: Libya is not our friend. And since Libya has no friends this is a great pr war.
- qual
  
  Hypocrisy is overrated. National interest trumps everything. Don’t take public statements from western diplomats literally ( the opposite is true for Arab diplomats, its complicated).
  
  For the Europeans its about refugees, an insurgency on their southern border, a dictator who’s hostile to other regimes in the region.
Lance

If only we still had F-14s for this mission almost want Tomcats to kill off whats left of Libya’s SU-22s and MiG-23s left before the Gulf of Sidra incident.

As for the EA-18 who cares the EA-6 could have also easily completed the mission the F-18 is over rated. Iam glad the Brits Euro-fighter made a success though since the fighter cost millions and until now never proved itself in combat.
jamesb101

I missed the T-Slams and Harriers in my guess on the op assets….
qual

I could be wrong but, UK Eurofighters aren’t used for ground attack. They haven’t been cleared to carry ground attack weapons. Tornados have been doing the strike missions, Eurofighters I presume were escorts.

btw 124 Tomahawks fired; all but 2 were American
- FtD
  
  probably those hawks are towards/beyond expiry dates anyway
STemplar

Anyone know where the Growlers came from?
- FtD
  
  F-18F…….
- ziv
  
  Detached from the Vinson and flying out of Italy?
EJ257

I bet the original designers of the USS Florida never envisioned their ship in action like this. Firing cruise missiles instead of SLBMs.
- PolicyWonk
  
  I’m sure the designers are delighted that these magnificent ships were used for something other than what they were originally designed for. And it certainly beats retiring them before their time was up (and thats a lot of years).
Jim

The Growlers were stationed aboard the Enterprise. All Growler squadrons land based are stationed in Whidbey Island,WA. I am a former member of VAQ-141 Shadowhawks, originally equipped with the EA-6B Prowler. The squadron was assigned to carrier air wing 8, aboard the Roosevelt CVN-71, but is being transferred to the George Bush and is currently on work OPS preparing for a med cruise this spring. There were also a few B-2 Stealth bombers that flew from Mississippi straight to Libya and dropped 45,000 ibs of ordanance. Impressive !!!
The F-18 is by far the best aircraft available to the Navy today, replacing the F-14. Obviously the Navy knows more then you do, and does not think the F-18 is a piece of shit. Why were there, is because of U.S. interest to protect innocent civilains being attacked by there leader, AKA same situation as Sadaam Hussein. If he doesnt step down, and even though he isnt a target to the U.S. right now, I believe he will be in the upcoming week. My question is, how do they know where he is, but yet after 10 years we still cant find Bin Laden ?
- Nadnerbus
  
  I miss the Tomcat too, and the Super Hornet still doesn’t quite measure up to it in range and payload, but other than that there is no contest. I forget the maintainence hours per flight hour, but the Tomcat was two or three times what the Super Hornet is running. The Navy really pulled off a coup when they got that thing without having to put the contract to bid by selling it as an “upgrade.” The Super Hornet is the biggest bargain in terms of high end gear that the military is getting today. My opinion of course.
- JimmyCrackCapricorn
  
  One drone one bomb one dead President. We have assassination orders on American civies abroad “accused” of links to terrorism, but we can’t just go kill this guy and get it over with? The logic pales….to the stupidity of this jackass US mentality. This is a “stimulus package” for an MIC already drowning in U$Dollars….nothing less.
Dean

I think we’re still ****** about Lockerbie and stuff, we kind of got played, regret over Lybia’s false conversion. Easier logistical problem to attack Lybia than Egypt, assets in place, within range of airbases, heavy lifting from coalition, degrade the capability of the enemy, and turn it over to the French when the mags are empty. Sounds sonewhere between a third to a half of cells available are expended. The tempo will drop off but I would say a couple weeks more, not much more than that. And you know that first salvo from tlams to ew to airstrikes must have really hurt bad. Plus, Look Ma! No Carrier!
Dean

Libya, I mean Libya
Darn autofill!

Also, no A-A engagements?
Jim

there is a carrier. The enterprise is in the Red Sea. Where do you think the Growlers came from?
- hotel55
  
  The Growlers came from Iraq. Story on defense tech home page.