U.S. Navy moves bunker-busting Tomahawk toward production

The U.S. Navy plans to award Raytheon a sole-source contract for low-rate initial production of the Joint Multiple Effects Warhead System, a new warhead that lets the Tomahawk cruise missile strike bunkers and other hardened targets, according to a notice Naval Air Systems Command posted on October 7.

The contract would move the warhead program out of its engineering and manufacturing development phase and into production for the Tomahawk Block Vb variant. The notice did not give a contract value, the number of warheads to be built or a delivery schedule.

The Navy’s Tomahawk program office at Patuxent River, Maryland, said it intends to negotiate only with Raytheon in Tucson, Arizona, the RTX business that has been the sole developer, designer and manufacturer of the Tomahawk since 1994. The Navy said RTX alone holds the current configuration and manufacturing data for the missile and is the only known source able to do the work on schedule without duplicating costs.

The notice is not a request for competing bids. Other companies may submit capability statements by 4 p.m. EDT on October 22, which the Navy said it will consider. The Navy also noted that Tomahawk data is export controlled and not available to foreign sources.

The warhead, known as JMEWS, combines blast-fragmentation and penetration effects in a single two-stage design. It is meant to give the Tomahawk more options against hardened and heavily defended targets such as bunkers, underground facilities and missile sites, as well as against targets spread over a wide area. The Block IV Tomahawk it builds on carries a 1,000-pound-class unitary warhead.

Raytheon won a $90.4 million contract for the warhead’s engineering and manufacturing development phase, the final stage of development before production.

The Block Vb missile is one of two new variants in the Navy’s Block V modernization, which recertifies existing Block IV Tomahawks with upgraded navigation and communications and extends their service life. The Navy received its first Block V missile in March 2021. The other variant, the Block Va Maritime Strike Tomahawk, adds a seeker so the missile can hit moving ships at sea.

The Pentagon’s weapons testing office reported in its fiscal 2023 annual report that the Navy had conducted JMEWS arena tests and planned to complete the warhead’s live-fire test campaign in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, which ended in September. The office has not yet published an assessment of the warhead’s lethality.

In 2022, the Navy’s Tomahawk program manager, Capt. John Red, said the JMEWS variant was expected to reach initial operational capability in 2027.