The Army Is Back in the Ship Killin’ Business

Above is a video made by PrSM’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, outlining how the missile works. In the video, PrSM kicks the door down for a F-35 air strike, targeting radars and surface to air missile launchers defending the target. This sort of operation is known as a multi-domain operation, and involves forces from the air and land domains to work together to carry out a common mission. Theoretically, multi-domain operations allow services to bring their own unique strengths to a mission and increse the probability of success.

In a press release, the Navy emphasized that the target ship was stripped of all chemical contaminants beforehand, describing ex-USS Cleveland as “environmentally clean.” Any target involved in a SINKEX is guaranteed to be sent to the bottom by the combined firepower of the exercise participants, and the Navy does not want pollution allegations to come back to haunt them.

The Return of the Coast Artillery

The U.S. Army has historically maintained America’s shore-based anti-ship defenses. Fort Montgomery and Fort Clinton in the Revolutionary War, Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, and the Confederate Fort Sumter during the Civil War were all manned by U.S. Army or Confederate troops (the guns were typically operated by members of the artillery branch). In 1901, the Army established the Coastal Artillery Corps—part of the Artillery branch—which manned coastal artillery guns and harbor defenses.

The Coastal Artillery Corps was disbanded in 1950, after the primacy of the U.S. Navy and its ability to meet the enemy at sea made the Army’s land-based forces obsolete. For the next 73 years, the Army was without a specific capability to attack ships. All of that changed in 2023, when the service accepted its first PrSM missile.

The Search for Relevance

Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea is small and more than a hundred miles from any definable mainland, making it a poor target for an Army forced entry operation. But the Army could move in after a Marine Corps amphibious landing, a Multi Domain Task Force establishing a protective shield around nearby U.S. and Allied forces.

The rise of the Chinese military, as well as Chinese aggression in the Western Pacific, has made a new war in the Indo-Pacific a distinct possibility. The region is dominated by the Eurasian landmass and the vastness of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The specific areas in which China is currently trying to expand its territory—the East and South China Seas—feature very small islets, atolls, and other tiny land features bordered by major islands, including the Philippines, Japan, and other Pacific nations.

The lack of land is a problem, as the U.S. Army tries to figure out how it would contribute to a Pacific War. The Army has no amphibious forces, so seizing these small islands from an enemy would naturally go to the Marine Corps. The Army has instead decided it would contribute through brigade-sized units of long-range air defense forces and artillery units that it calls Multi-Domain Task Forces (MDTFs), which can make life unpleasant for enemy forces within the range of their weapons. MDTFs—along with submarines, aircraft carriers, Marines, and Air Force fighters and bombers—would flood a combat zone and restrict an enemy’s ability to maneuver, conduct ambushes, and push forward into formarly occupied territory.

PrSM is especially threatening to Chinese Navy ships such as Kunlun Shan, the lead ship of the Type 071 amphibious dock ships. The ability to hold these ships at risk would slow or even stop a Chinese naval landing campaign.

PrSm’s anti-ship capability is part of this scheme. Once a MDTF occupies an island, it makes an instant no-go zone with a 310 mile radius for enemy ships and aircraft. As a result, any opponent must expend the resources to suppress the MDTF or accept the risk of losing ships. If they choses the former, other air and sea forces could take advantage of the situation to hit vulnerable forces.

On one hand, the Army fielding anti-ship missiles feels like a duplication of the efforts of the Navy, Marine Corps, and the Air Force. On the other hand, excluding the Army from a future Pacific War might be a mistake, as it could limit the depth of U.S. forces available to respond to a crisis. PrSM allows the Army to create a 620-mile-wide protective bubble across the Pacific—a powerful capability that will only grow stronger as the PrSM adds range and further capabilities.

Kyle Mizokami is a writer on defense and security issues and has been at Popular Mechanics since 2015. If it involves explosions or projectiles, he’s generally in favor of it. Kyle’s articles have appeared at The Daily Beast, U.S. Naval Institute News, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Combat Aircraft Monthly, VICE News, and others. He lives in San Francisco.