Suddenly and without much fanfare, the US Navy has deployed potentially the longest-range air-to-air missile in the world: the Raytheon AIM-174B, an air-launched version of the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) from the same company.
In early July, the Navy circulated the first photos of big, heavy 22-foot AIM-174Bs under the wings of Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters participating in the sprawling Rim of the Pacific exercise. The F-18s reportedly belonged to Carrier Air Wing 2 embarked on the nuclear supercarrier USS Carl Vinson.
Launched at high altitude and high speed, the AIM-174B should travel at least as far as a normal SM-6 fired from a vertical launch tube aboard a surface warship – that is, at least 220 miles. That should at least match the reach of the most powerful Chinese and Russian air-to-air missiles – respectively, the PL-17 and R-37M (Nato reporting name “Axehead”).
While the AIM-174 had appeared in a few blurry photos during the testing of type over the last few years, there was no hint the Navy was rushing to deploy the munition to front-line squadrons in the fleet. And that made some sense. The Pentagon is struggling to pay for any more than 125 SM-6s or derivative missiles a year: each weapon costs $4 million. As long as surface warships and shore batteries were desperate for additional missiles, it might not have made sense for fighter squadrons to add to the demand.
But the Navy has obviously decided that its aerial needs have urgency, too, and that’s understandable. As recently as the early 2000s, the fleet operated Grumman F-14 Tomcat fighters armed with Hughes AIM-54 Phoenix missiles ranging as far as 115 miles. The Tomcat/Phoenix combination was seen as probably the ultimate air-to-air capability in its day – the era following the first Top Gun movie, in which Maverick and Goose flew and fought in their Tomcat. The Phoenix protected Navy carriers and their escorts against enemy fighters, bombers and cruise missiles.
Such long-ranging missiles are launched at targets much too far off for pilots to actually see what they’re shooting at: this kind of distant air-to-air fighting is referred to as “beyond visual range” (BVR) combat. Technically, today’s Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile (AMRAAM), which is carried by all current US fighters, is a BVR weapon: but as its name implies, its 80-mile-plus range is relatively limited compared to true full-fat 100-mile-plus BVR weapons like the Phoenix or the Russian Axehead.
Proper long-range protection for US carrier groups ended when the Phoenix left the fleet in 2004 and the Tomcat retired in 2006. F-18 Super Hornets took over fleet air defence, but their most powerful weapon was the AMRAAM. The Navy found itself increasingly outgunned as the Russians and Chinese deployed better and better missiles of their own.
Among the enemy air-to-air missiles, the Chinese PL-17 is poorly understood and untested in combat. The Russian R-37M Axehead has played a major role in the war in Ukraine, however – and its impressive combat record may explain why the Americans have rushed the new AIM-174B into service.
Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-31 interceptors armed with R-37Ms “have proven highly effective against Ukrainian attack aircraft and fighters,” Justin Bronk, Nick Reynolds and Jack Watling wrote in a study for the Royal United Services Institute in London.
The MiG-31 flies higher, faster and farther than the Ukrainian air force’s own Sukhoi Su-27 interceptors. From their lofty perches, MiG-31 crews fire R-37Ms at targets as far as 200 miles away, although the missile works best at ranges no farther than 80 miles. A Ukrainian Su-27 by contrast can fire a Vympel R-27 missile no farther than 50 miles.
By late 2022, the Russian air force was firing up to six Axeheads a day at Ukrainian planes. The missiles didn’t always hit – but they didn’t have to. The mere presence of an Axehead-armed MiG often forced Ukrainian pilots to abandon their missions. After all, the powerful R-37M is “particularly difficult to evade,” according to the RUSI analysts. And the Ukrainians couldn’t fight back.
If, in some future major war in Europe or over the Pacific Ocean, the Americans face Chinese PL-17s or Russian Axeheads, they can now fight back on equal or more-than-equal terms – with the new AIM-174Bs. They might well have a range advantage over the Chinese or Russians. The glory days of US naval air supremacy may be back.
It’s unclear exactly how far an AIM-174B can travel, as the launching plane’s speed and altitude are major factors. It’s likely, however, that the heavyweight missile flies much farther than an F/A-18 can detect targets with its Raytheon APG-79 radar.
In that case, the missile could still go after targets its launching plane can’t detect. The US fleet has deployed a radio data network called Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air that connects ships and planes so that any sensor can cue any shooter. A destroyer fitted with a powerful Aegis radar could spot an enemy plane hundreds of miles away and pass the coordinates to an F/A-18 armed with AIM-174Bs. If the bandit were flying low, below a warship’s radar horizon, he would probably still be detected by an E-2 Hawkeye radar craft flying high with line-of-sight across vast areas. US carrier groups expecting trouble normally keep a Hawkeye airborne around the clock.
Look for the US Air Force to follow right behind the Navy. The Air Force is developing its own very-long-range air-to-air missile, the AIM-260 – and is also developing its own command-and-control network so that fighters can take advantage of the new missile’s potentially impressive reach. Several European nations including the UK now have the Meteor BVR missile in service, too – data linked.
BVR air combat would seem to be one type of fighting, at least, where the West is ready or nearly ready to face its enemies.
