Reloading at sea: US Navy's answer to China's missile advantage

US naval destroyers are some of the most powerful ships on the water, but after they shoot their

shots, they usually have to go to a friendly port to rearm

Not exactly ideal during a high-end fight, which is why the maritime service is working

feverishly to hone a new skill, replenishment at sea of vertical launch system cells

The crew aboard the USS Higgins became the latest group of sailors to practice what the Navy calls

enhanced expeditionary logistics capabilities back in July. That's when sailors on the Higgins

simulated the reload of an SM-2 missile. Now, the exercise was more of a walkthrough as no actual

missile or training munition was loaded, but just practicing the reload was enough of a milestone

that Rear Admiral Eric Anduz said, this gives our warfighters a tremendous amount of agility

to strike from sea, move, reload, reposition, and strike again. It represents a lethal tactical

advantage that helps us protect the safety and prosperity of the region. Reloading a vertical

launch cell is not an easy process, and usually requires the aid of a crane. That's why, for years

it was only ever done in controlled environments, away from the action and in calm waters

Over the last couple of years, though, the U.S. Navy began experimenting with different ways to

conduct expeditionary vertical launch reloads, a fancy way of saying rearming destroyers and

cruisers with missiles while operating in and or near conflict zones The work saw the creation of the transferable rearming mechanism also called the transferable rearming at sea method or just simply tram And the first successful use of the tram during an expeditionary

reload at sea took place last October in the Pacific aboard the USS Chosen. And now the Navy

is training crews on destroyers throughout the Indo-Pacific region on how to successfully perform

the operation. To understand the importance of expeditionary reloads, you really just need to look at recent

events in the Red Sea, where the Houthis and Yemen just keep launching missiles and drones

at passing ships. It's simple math. If an adversary has a lot of things to shoot, it's going to take a lot of things to defend against

So if a ship has to sail away to reload, that creates vulnerabilities in the joint force

While the US Navy may have been able to gloss over some of those vulnerabilities in a fight

with the Houthis, a high-end conflict with China will not afford such opportunities

As we've covered plenty here at Straight Arrow News, China's increased aggression

in the region and desire to reunify with the people of Taiwan by military force if necessary

is creating a lot of insecurity and instability in the Indo-Pacific. The People's Liberation Army Rocket Force, or PLARF, has a deep supply of missiles and rockets

so if the U.S. Navy needs to defend against or defeat a series of sustained strikes from China

the ability to reload its vertical launch cells could quite literally be the difference between success and defeat

For more reporting like this, download the Straight Arrow News app today