During military exercises with the Philippines that began last month, the U.S. Army deployed a new secret weapon designed to be unnoticeable.
The device, called Typhon, consists of a modified 40-foot shipping container that conceals up to four missiles that rotate upward and fire. It can carry weapons such as the Tomahawk cruise missile, which can attack maritime targets and land-based ships more than 1,150 miles away.
This weapon and other similar small mobile launchers are limited by the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which prohibits the U.S. and Russian militaries from possessing ground-based cruise missiles or ballistic missiles with a range of about 300 miles. It would have been illegal five years ago. and 3,400 miles.
In 2019, President Donald J. Trump abandoned the agreement, in part because the United States believed Russia had been violating the terms of the agreement for years. But U.S. officials said China’s expanding arsenal of long-range missiles was also a reason for the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw.
This decision allows the Pentagon to build weapons to protect Taiwan from Chinese aggression. It was also a time when U.S. Marine Corps leaders reconsidered modern warfare. They did away with certain heavy and unwieldy weapons that they considered of little use against Chinese forces in the Pacific, such as 155-millimeter howitzers and tanks, in favor of lighter, more flexible weapons such as truck-mounted anti-ship missiles. Recommended to replace.
At the time, the Pentagon had no ground-based anti-ship weapons. But other militaries are already doing so. And in April 2022, Ukrainian ground forces used a similar weapon, the truck-launched Neptune anti-ship cruise missile, to sink the Russian cruiser Moskva in the Black Sea.
Despite the success of the Moscow attack, a group of retired Marine generals publicly criticized the Corps’ plan to prioritize similar weapons at the expense of more traditional weapons. The service is focused on China at the expense of other potential threats, and removing tanks and some heavy artillery would prepare the Marines for large-scale conflicts in other parts of the world. He said it would disappear.
At a Defense Reporters Group meeting in December 2022, Gen. David H. Berger, then the commander in chief of the Marine Corps, acknowledged that he had been criticized by former colleagues, but that intelligence reports were not available to veterans. The decision was made based on the document.
U.S. military and civilian leaders believed that Chinese President Xi Jinping intended to follow through on a number of promises to unify Taiwan and China by diplomatic means or, if necessary, force. The Moscow ship’s hull rusting on the ocean floor also suggests a possible way to dissuade Beijing from military action.
Pentagon officials say deterrence against China includes missiles like the advanced Tomahawk, which can hit ships with the equivalent of about half a ton of TNT, and Ukraine, which carries a warhead about one-third the size. He thought that even missiles like the Neptune were not necessary.
In fact, U.S. officials have come to believe that deploying even smaller missiles to neutralize Chinese frigates, destroyers, and amphibious craft may be sufficient. Mr. Xi has come to consider the idea that he will only attempt an invasion if he believes he can succeed in a relatively bloodless operation before the United States does. The military responded.
Targeting officers selected a naval missile known as SM-6, short for Standard Missile 6, that they thought was suitable for the mission.
With a warhead about half the size of the Neptune’s warhead, the SM-6 can evade the defenses of Chinese warships and, upon impact, change the crew’s mission from invasion to survival.
Setting a squadron of Chinese amphibious ships full of troops ablaze in the Taiwan Strait could undermine not only the defense of the de facto independent island but also Mr. Xi’s grip on power within his own Communist Party, the Pentagon said. The officials thought.
Without the legal restrictions of the INF Treaty, the Department of Defense began experimenting with existing assets.
A sealed canister containing a Tomahawk and an SM-6 missile was mounted on a small truck and hidden inside a shipping container.
The Navy has publicly stated that the missile’s maximum range is about 115 miles. But the SM-6 can actually reach targets at a range of 490 miles, officials confirmed to The New York Times, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive weapon’s capabilities.
In the event of hostilities with China, the Philippines could invoke its long-standing mutual defense pact with Washington and deploy mobile missile launchers at any of the nine Philippine military bases the Pentagon has secured access to over the past decade. The US military may be asked to do so.
Some of these partner bases are concentrated on the island of Luzon, where SM-6 missiles could threaten Chinese shipping in the sea lanes between the northernmost tip of the Philippines and Taiwan.
Last year, the Pentagon gained access to a base on Balabac Island in the southwestern Philippines. From there, the same weapons could reach China’s militarized reef clusters in the Spratly Islands. The Spratly Islands are a major base of operations for Beijing’s efforts to control the South China Sea.
A new security agreement signed in August between the U.S. and Japanese governments opens the door to a third strategic base to defend Taiwan in the event of war: a military base in Japan’s far western Ryukyu Islands. may be provided. An SM-6 launched from one such facility on Yonaguni Island, where U.S. forces train with Japanese forces, would strike any target around Taiwan and threaten bases across the strait in mainland China. there is a possibility.
With a longer-range Tomahawk, a truck-based launcher, and a Typhon hidden on small islands within a thousand miles of mainland China, the Typhon could leverage one of Beijing’s perceived greatest strengths: a Chinese-developed The missile, which military leaders say could sink an American aircraft carrier, could nearly eliminate it. Dispatched to defend Taiwan.
