MAY06-07: Navy Successfully Concludes Water Piercing Missile Launcher Testing
From: Team Submarine Public Affairs
WASHINGTON -Team Submarine's Undersea Technology Program Office (NAVSEA 073R) completed testing on the Water Piercing Missile Launcher (WPML), April 28, with a successful launch and fly-out of an AIM-9X surrogate missile at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane, Ind.
The WPML effort, while not a program of record, is designed to test and validate the ability of a submerged submarine to engage hostile aircraft and small, fast surface ships with a slightly-modified AIM-9X air-to-air missile that could be integrated into the attack and guided missile submarine fleets. WPML technology could provide the submarine force with a universal underwater launch technology capable of employing currently-deployed weapons and payloads without significant modification to the weapon itself.
Utilizing an already existing concentric canister launcher, NAVSEA 073R tested three different methods of ejecting an AIM-9X-like shape from the equivalent of periscope depth.
"To get the missile from the submerged sled, we needed to create a hole in the water column," said Cmdr. Mike Douglass, Team Submarine's Undersea Technology program manager. "We tested using the rocket's own exhaust, compressed air, and a carbon dioxide heated propellant to form the gas pocket and found that each worked."
With this last test, NAVSEA 073R placed the missile on a submerged platform that also traveled horizontally at a tactically-relevant speed and used the exhaust from two Zuni rockets to form an air pocket that got the missile about half way through the water column. The missile was to pass through the gaps formed by the rocket exhaust and then used its own motor to get it through the water.
"The end result," Douglass concluded, "the AIM-9X surrogate flew through the submerged air pocket, through the remaining water column, remained stable, and reached our planned altitude of 400-feet without a problem."
"As our submarines continue to operate in shallow and congested waters," said Rear Adm. David Johnson, NAVSEA's deputy commander for Undersea Technology and the Navy's Submarine Force's Chief Technology Officer, "they are more likely to encounter potentially hostile air and surface forces. The WPML, coupled with a littoral warfare weapon such as a modified AIM-9X, could provide our forces with a stand and fight capability. We have proven the concept and reduced much of the risk involved with adding this capability to the fleet."
