One of the largest concerns regarding the U.S. Navy’s ability to persist in a peer conflict in the vast Pacific is the ability to keep its prized major surface combatants — destroyers, cruisers and soon frigates — stocked with weapons. The conflict with the Houthis in and around the Red Sea has only underscored the need to figure out how to reload vertical launch systems (VLS) without coming into port. If an Iranian-backed rebel group can make a big dent in American warships’ weapons stocks, China would be exponentially worse. You can read all about this glaring issue in our previous feature here. But now, the Navy has just demonstrated its fast-tracked possible solution to this pressing issue.
USS Chosin (CG-65), a Ticonderoga class cruiser, came alongside Military Sealift Command’s dry cargo ship USNS Washington Chambers (T-AKE 11) and transferred an empty VLS weapon container to the cruiser while sailing off the southern California coast on October 11th.
The device designed for this critical application is the Transferrable Reload At-sea Method or ‘TRAM.’ During the test, a U.S. Navy press release states:
“The sailors then used TRAM to move the missile canister along rails attached to the cruiser’s VLS modules, tilt it into a vertical position, and lower it into a VLS cell with TRAM’s built-in cable and pulley system… The successful demonstration marks a critical step in the capability to rearm warships at sea—a top priority outlined by Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro.”
The Secretary of the Navy, who was in attendance to watch the test, declared it a huge success.
“Today, we proved just how game-changing TRAM truly is—and what a powerful deterrent it will be to our competitors…,” he said. “This demonstration marks a key milestone on the path to perfecting this capability and fielding it for sustained operations at sea.”
This demonstration was highly-anticipated, with Congress taking a major interest in the capability. A pier-side trial at Naval Surface Warfare Center Port Hueneme Division, which also developed the system, was successful in July, but doing it at sea was a big leap in terms of complexity. The hydraulically-powered TRAM system can be used while the ship is executing underway replenishment, which is a regular but demanding task, where all types of supplies are moved from a supply ship to a warship while moving parallel to one another. If TRAM proves fully successful and is fielded to the fleet, it means that Mk 41 Vertical Launch System weapons cells can also be replenished during these operations.
Getting this system into a deployable state is of utmost importance as the threat from China looms larger by the day. During a conflict in the Pacific, just the size of the theater will make resupplying highly dispersed warships very challenging, let alone the danger these vessels will be in. But the volume of fire that could occur in such a conflict could quickly leave America’s most powerful warships without certain types of missiles in their VLS cells. This is especially concerning when it comes to weapons that are critical to defending the ships themselves.
Ports capable of VLS resupply could be thousands of miles away from patrol areas and they too could be at risk of attack. On top of this, the U.S. Navy is finding it very challenging to meet its surface combatant hull goals of the future. Each ship that is operational at the time of the conflict will be very valuable and keeping them on scene longer will be critical to achieving overall military objectives. TRAM is supposed to go a long way in helping with these issues, although having enough ships to execute underway replenishment in such a huge theater, even with potential combat losses, is another issue entirely.
As it sits now, Secretary Del Toro says the Navy is on track to begin fielding TRAM operationally in two to three years.
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