Harpoon Drops Out of OTH Competition

Defense New website reports that Boeing is pulling its Harpoon missile out of the running for the Navy’s over-the-horizon (OTH) weapon system intended for the LCS and, possibly, other Navy ships (1).  The bizarre aspect of this is that Boeing’s stated reason for doing so is that the Navy has dumbed down the requirements to the point that Boeing believes the Harpoon is overqualified and that the opportunity is, therefore, not worth pursuing.

Digest that, for a moment.

Here are the relevant quotes.

“Troy Rutherford, director of cruise missile systems at Boeing Defense, said the company had long planned to adapt the Block II Plus Extended Range Harpoon being developed for Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) to support the needs of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA).

“We felt we were well-positioned when the RFP dropped” in February, Rutherford said, but subsequent Navy changes -- in Boeing’s opinion – devalued a lot of what the company felt it could offer.”

“But, he said, “in every iteration of the RFP amendments we see a decrease in the top-level requirements document and changes in the top-level requirements document. We’ve taken a hard look at that and said that at this point it doesn’t make sense for the Boeing Company to bid on this.” 

We just recently reviewed the Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile (NSM) (see, "Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile") and we’ve previously looked at the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) (see, for example, "LRASM Update").  Both of those appear to have many more features and capabilities than the Harpoon and yet they're not dropping out of the competition.

Harpoon Test Launch From LCS

Something is not right about this.  Is Boeing pulling out because they’ve realized or been told that their Harpoon is technologically non-competitive and they just want to put a positive spin on it – a spin intended to support and reassure less demanding foreign sales?  Is Boeing nervous about having a unilateral – and non-profitable – cost imposed on them by the government, as was done to Lockheed?  Has Boeing concluded that their ship version of the Harpoon would be too expensive to compete?  Something else?

By all accounts, the ship launched version of Harpoon essentially already exists.  If the Navy has dumbed down requirements, Boeing could simply omit the various affected bits and pieces and price the missile accordingly.  What would they have to lose by placing a bid for a dumbed down version?

Here’s a puzzling and potentially disturbing statement from the article.

“Among the differences between the NAVAIR and NAVSEA requirements, Rutherford noted, are all-weather and net-enabled capabilities for the air-launched weapon – capabilities deleted or not given in the surface ship requirements.”

This is saying that the ship launched OTH missile will not be all-weather capable?!  So, we’re only going to fight during good weather?  Nothing about that sounds right, does it? 

Also, the OTH missile won’t be network enabled?  The entire premise of the Navy’s much ballyhooed distributed lethality is that every sensor, every platform, and every weapon ARE networked.  Again, this does not sound right.

You don’t need me to tell you that something is fishy about this.  Something is not right about this story but I don’t know what.  I’ll keep an eye on this.

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(1)Defense News website, “Boeing Pulls Harpoon From US Navy Missile Competition”, Christopher Cavas, 2-May-2017,

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/boeing-pulls-harpoon-from-us-navy-missile-competition

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