The US Navy has decided to solve a problem that was ignored for a long time.
Since the Cold War era The US Navy has the world’s most powerful battle system of the ship because of this they do not need to upgrade 1977 Harpoon anti-ship missiles.
Both other navies do not create a significant threat and focusing on land and air attacks, ship to ship attack systems do not keep in the forefront. LRASM (Long Range Anti-Ship Missile) was produced to solve this problem. The most striking feature of this new missile is equipped with artificial intelligence. LRASM is using all the possibilities of technology and tries every conceivable method to destroy moving targets.
Before LRASM is fired, all the detailed data about targeted ship transmit to missiles. These missiles draw a route according to the position of the enemy, the number of ship and ammunition. And it use two small wings to maneuver. First, missiles go to very high altitudes to hide from enemy radars and ship provides the control of missiles a short time. After that LRASM connect with satellites and it monitored via GPS. During this process all the recent data about enemy fleet transmitted through this system.
When LRASM use a route to target, if it notice any dangerous situation or an information about dangerous areas is transmitted to the missile via GPS, missiles draw a new route immediately and manages to escape from enemy radar by not entering these dangerous areas. When approaching the targeted ships, missiles descent to the sea level suddenly hiding from enemy radar before it can be detected. Unlike missiles used by Chinese and Russian Navies, LRASM do not move quickly.LRASM use the less half of capacity made to restrict the target response time to provide the opportunity to maneuver in an emergency. In this way it reviews the progress of the enemy fleet and detects the target point to hit for the most damage.
The Harpoon missile is widely used in the US Navy while carrying a warhead of about 212 kilograms of explosives with technology dating from 1977, LRASM has more than twice ( 453 kg) destructive capability.
The US Navy plans to get the first LRASM missiles in 2017. Initially, 24 missiles that will be ordered and it is planned to purchase 464 units up to 2021.And the cost of a LRASM is about half million dollars.