Summary and Key Points: With China’s navy significantly outnumbering the United States’, cost-effective and lethal anti-ship solutions are crucial. The U.S. Air Force’s new QUICKSINK Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) provides a powerful yet inexpensive solution.
-Modifying a standard 2,000-pound GPS-guided bomb with a radar and infrared imaging seeker, QUICKSINK enables air-launched bombs to effectively destroy warships in a single hit, rivaling submarine-launched torpedoes without risking subs.
-Successful demonstrations confirm its potential, notably sinking retired ships quickly.
-Priced between $70,000 to $250,000 per unit, QUICKSINK offers an affordable way for the U.S. military to challenge Chinese naval superiority without exhausting missile stocks.
China Won’t Like QUICKSINK JADM
Many experts have come to believe a war between the United States and China is inevitable. In the event of such a war, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) would outnumber the U.S. Navy by more than two ships to one.
With more than 700 large Chinese warships to the United States’ 300, getting into a shooting war would be a tough proposition for the Navy, especially as China is outbuilding U.S. shipyards by a wide margin, further tilting the numbers in their favor.
While the U.S. Navy does plan to bring more ships to sea in the near future, it will be outnumbered no matter what, and this could leave certain locations improperly defended.
Anti-Ship Missiles Are Expensive
The U.S. has some very effective antiship missiles, but they are not cheap. Missiles fired from surface warships cost between $2 million and $4 million a piece.
The Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles fired from aircraft, which are highly effective, are even more expensive—more than $3.2 million each.
However, these would be the exact missiles needed to take on the best Chinese surface ships.
The question is whether the United States could keep up financially with the cost of launching these missiles, especially considering how many would be needed.
The Air Force Research Labs (AFRL) has constructed a weapon that is as effective as it is cost-cutting: It can destroy a ship with a single bomb.
Meet The QUICKSINK JDAM
The heavyweight MK-48 torpedo is still the most effective tool available for sinking a naval warship. New methods utilized through the QUICKSINK program could achieve the same antiship lethality as that torpedo with air-launched weapons, including modified 2,000-pound precision-guided bombs.
Once a submarine launches a torpedo at a target, it gives away its position, and, therefore, can become a target itself.
The QUICKSINK Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) aims to provide a low-cost option that gets its kills from the air, at a much higher pace, and over a much larger area than what is covered by a submarine.
The AFRL combined two pieces of inventory to create a very effective weapon. A regular JDAM bomb—in many tests, a 2000-pound modified GPS-guided GBU-31—was used to sink retired ships. Attached to the nose was the QUICKSINK part, which is designed so that the JDAM doesn’t careen off-target once it hits the water.
Quicksink’s bolt-on kit is a radar seeker in the nose, and an infrared imaging seeker installed in a new side fairing. Simple.
The Air Force wants the weapons to hit the target vessel at specific points, including its top, at the waterline, or just below the water’s surface.
Tests Were Successful, Sinking an Amphibious Warfare Ship
Along with Navy assets, an Air Force B-2 “proved a low-cost, air-delivered method for defeating surface vessels through a QUICKSINK demonstration,” the U.S. Third Fleet, responsible for U.S. Navy operations in the eastern and northern Pacific, said in a July 22 press release.
“The B-2 was used to help sink the Tarawa,” a spokesperson for the Third Fleet added in an email to Air & Space Forces Magazine.
“This capability is an answer to an urgent need to quickly neutralize maritime threats over massive expanses of ocean around the world at minimal costs,” the release added.
Wargames conducted by the Pentagon found that LRASM stocks would run out in a shooting war with China in a matter of days. Mark Gunzinger, director of future concepts and capability assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said:
“Both standoff and penetrating maritime strikes are needed to create the volume that’s going to be required to deny the first attempt by the PLA Navy to invade a friend such as Taiwan or elsewhere in the South China Sea.”
The AFRL believes Quicksink kits, which currently cost roughly $200,000 each to procure, will drop in price to roughly $50,000 each when serial production begins.
But even if it doesn’t, the BLU-109 bomb it rides on costs only around $20,000—making this a weapon that could range in price from roughly $70,000 to maybe as much as $250,000, with the capacity to sink even very large warships with a single strike.
Author Expertise and Biography:
Steve Balestrieri is a 19FortyFive National Security Columnist. He served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer. In addition to writing for 19FortyFive, he covers the NFL for PatsFans.com and is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). His work was regularly featured in many military publications.
