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Rearming US Navy ships at sea is no longer an option, but a necessity
By Brent D. Sadler
Mar 5, 08:26 AM

Sailors aboard the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Spruance guide training
ordnance into the ship’s forward VLS cells in San Diego, Calif. (MC3
Taylor Crenshaw/U.S. Navy)
One simple step can “revolutionize surface warfare,” as U.S. Navy
Secretary Carlos Del Toro put it at the latest naval conference WEST in
San Diego: rearming our warships at sea. Today the only way to reload
vertical launching system cells — the mainstay of the Navy’s front-line
warship — is to pull into port, often taking warships out of action for
weeks at a time.

Consider the situation in the Red Sea. For our Navy’s warships engaging
the Houthi rebel group, reloading VLS cells would require a transit
through the Suez Canal to ports in Greece or Italy, about 2,000 miles or
more away. This lost time, under persistent Houthi attacks, proves this
ability to reload underway is no longer a luxury — it’s a necessity.

VLS cells carry most of the surface fleet’s firepower onboard destroyers
and cruisers. From VLS cells, the Navy employs air and missile defense
weapons as well as long-range strike and anti-ship missiles. The Arleigh
Burke-class destroyers have the capacity to store 90-96 missiles in VLS
cells depending on the variant of warship. Warships are loaded with an
assortment of weapons before deploying to meet expected mission needs
and ensure the ship’s self-defense.

Reloading the most capable missile defense weapon — the RIM-161, also
known as the Standard Missile-3 — into one of these vertical cells is a
delicate matter. It requires precisely loading a 1.5-ton, 21.5-foot-long
missile into a tube built into the hull of the ship. At sea, the
movement caused by even calm seas makes this nearly impossible to do
without damaging the missile.

A 2019 Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments study found a VLS
reload-at-sea capability could provide the equivalent of an additional
18 destroyers or cruisers in a Pacific war scenario. With China’s modern
navy larger than ours and backed by a massive shipbuilding industry,
every one of our warships must be kept in the fight. As such, the U.S.
Navy can ill afford to lose one warship for weeks to arrive at a safe
Pacific harbor to reload weapons.

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Fortunately, rearming VLS cells at sea is not an impossible engineering
problem.

The Navy has explored two options since the mid-1990s. The first uses a
conventional approach reminiscent of time-tested underway replenishment
at-sea methods: the Transportable Re-Arming Mechanism. The second, more
complex approach uses a crane that compensates for wave movements: Large
Vessel Interface Lift On/Lift Off.

Between the two approaches, the TRAM system’s simpler approach is closer
to an at-sea demonstration. The secretary’s comments at WEST indicate
this is coming in the summer. Once completed the next step will be to
adapt the method to operational destroyers — a task that the Navy’s
recent performance indicates will be too long in coming.

Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea have been going on for months,
and the destroyer Carney has been there from the beginning. As of Feb.
3, it had been shooting down Houthi missiles and drones for almost four
months. When it must depart the fight for a distant port to load its VLS
cells, the lost firepower will have to be made up someway, or operations
will be affected.

Calls for developing the capability to reload VLS cells at sea is not
new. And the attention of the secretary of the Navy dates back to a
major speech given at Columbia University in December 2022. The
secretary’s attention clearly underscores the importance placed on
developing it. Yet progress seems stalled.

It’s time Congress steps in and gets answers to help the Navy get what
it needs to develop this critical capability. Perhaps some of the needed
money could be spared from the $114.7 million requested in the current
defense budget for diversity, equity and inclusion activities.

The nation cannot afford to learn the importance of having VLS rearming
at sea after a major war in Asia begins. As the secretary has stated,
“history is forged in the crucible of action, not the comfort of hindsight.”

Brent D. Sadler is a senior research fellow in naval warfare and
advanced technologies at The Heritage Foundation think tank.

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