Talk:BGM-109 Tomahawk

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~~question~~ Can someone get an answer for me? What is the future of BGM-109 Tomahawk? Is there any improvements that can be made on it?

Contents 1 Combat History 2 Designer 3 HPUX 4 Spain 5 Gas Mileage 6 SLCM/GLCM and History 7 The missle knows where it is at all times 8 Reported project cost 9 Contradiction

[edit] Combat History

I am not sure what the author means by "The first salvo was fired by two attack submarines on April 2, 1991, USS Pittsburgh and Louisville." The first missiles fired in Desert Storm were in Jan 1991, and hostilities were essentially over by the end of Feb that year. I was on USS Virginia off the coast of Isreal at the time. Tom Hubbard 20:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Designer

The people at Convair/General Dynamics would be very suprised to discover that the Tomahawk was designed by Robert Peterson. It was actually designed by Convair/GD and LTV in the 1970s. During the 1980s, it was manufactured by both GD and Robert Peterson. McDonnell Douglas. Production was cut back when the Ground Launch Cruise Missile was taken out of production. Hughes eventually became the prime contractor. While some parts of GD did end up with Hughes in the 1990s post cold war Defense Industrial complex shuffle, the Convair division went to McDonnell Douglas -- I'm 98% sure.

I've made some minor changes and amplifications, but other than the issue of who designed the thing, nothing that should be controversial -- DJK

That's nice. Because the non-missiles group of Convair wound up with Lockheed. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 03:52, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I can't vouch for who designed it, but I was on the USS Guitarro when we were shooting Tomahawks at San Clemente Island in the late 70's, and there were definitely Convair and GD "riders" on board.Go229 02:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] HPUX

What is HPUX? Rmhermen 22:20 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Well, it presently redirects to HP/UX, which is the unix variant made by Hewlett Packard. Frankly I think that's a questionable link, as a general unix OS doesn't seem like a likely choice for an embedded, real-time, high-risk project like a TLAM. Even if the phrase "Commercial Off the Shelf" really means the a commercial OS, you'd think it would be QNX neutino or WRS' VxWorks OS. I googled and I can only find copies of this article. If someone has a reference relating HPUX to TLAM I'd be happy to look it over. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 01:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spain

I think Spain has acquired a number of tomahawk recently so I think the Spanish Navy should be mentioned as operator (as July 21st 2005, see http://www.elpais.es for the news)

At the present (Dec 2006) Spain (as the Netherlands) is in the process of adquisition, but don´t have them onboard any warship (or at least don't have notice). More links: Defensa article, Terra article. Please anyone update the article if the criteria is that authorized countries are listed, or whenever the Tomahawks are delivered and loaded.

Acquiring the missiles is one thing. For the surface ships, the launching system will be the VLS Mk 41 system. For Foreign sales, these systems are restricted down to capable of launching supporting only the missile type the navy has at that time. Therefore the Mk41 system will need some modification to support the missile in addition to the Tomahawk Weapon Control System being added to the ships. To my knowledge that is not yet done. Suspect eventually the newer German ships will acquire and add this capability.

[edit] Gas Mileage

This is being nitpicky, but somehow I don't think "gas mileage" is the term I'd use to describe the fuel consumption of a jet engine in a cruise missile. While it technically would work, perhaps pounds/hour or some such weight/time is more appropriate than a distance term. -- MUSpud2 08:29, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

One site measured fuel consumption in kilograms per kilonewton-hour. Unweildy, but it works.

[edit] SLCM/GLCM and History

I'm considering proposing a merger of this and the GLCM article, which describes the ground-launched -G model of this missile which was withdrawn due to treaty in the mid 1980's. I also think the current article focuses too much on the current versions - there's nearly nothing on the development history, or the (rather extensive) operational history...--SebastianP 00:44, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Further note: I found a large (8 mb+) PDF detailing the development of the Tomahawk here. --SebastianP 01:09, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The missle knows where it is at all times

It knows this because it know where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't or from where it isn't from where it is, whichever is greater, it obtains a difference or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missle from a position where it is to a position where it isnt and arriving at a position where it wasn't it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't and it follows that the position that it was is now the position that it isnt. In the event that the position that it is in, is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation. The variation being the difference between where the missle is and where it isn't. If variation is considered to be significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missle must also know where it was. The missle guidance computer scenario works as follows, because a variation has modified some of the information the missle has obtained, it is not sure just where it is, however it is sure where it isnt within reason and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't or vice versa. And by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its varation which is called error.

heh. Do you have a reference :D Macktheknifeau 00:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The above has got to have the highest milk-out-nose factor of anything I've read about how my government intends to kill all those VERY BAD people out there in a long time, and that is saying a lot, since our news is full of such info these days and the volume of milk spewed seems to be the main (only??) criterion used by them in selecting processes, systems, policies, etc. (only sometimes they forget to make it funny and just make it scary) Fitzhugh 02:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

This is what I thought when I was browsing contradiction pages.  :) -03:44, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reported project cost

"Total program cost: $11,210,000,000"

This can't be right - 11 trillion? I reckon some has added a couple extra naughts onto the end. Also, it is in bold, which suggests someone is trying to make an invalid statement loudly. Can anyone confirm the project cost and de-bold the text? 83.99.15.186 23:28, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

That's 11 billion, not trillion, which seems reasonable...--67.183.2.40 19:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

The article W80 lists the yield as being between 50-150 kilotons, not to 200 kilotons, as listed in the "General characteristics" box. - MSTCrow 06:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)