Philippines Now Conducting Study Of Possible Anti-ship Missiles

A committee is now evaluating the best and most affordable missile which will be hopefully installed on the country's two Hamilton-class cutters now in service at the Philippine Navy (PN).

The Department of National Defense (DND) observer said that missiles being evaluated are the anti-ship type which will give the BRP Gregorio Del Pilar (PF-15) and BRP Ramon Alcaraz (PF-16) more capability in protecting the country's maritime domain.

Having the anti-missiles will also give the two ships more firepower in engaging would-be poachers and intruders.

The DND official declined to identify the exact type of missile being studied and stressed that the matter is "top secret".

Some defense officials earlier said that the Harpoon is the ideal missile system for the PN's Hamilton-class cutters as the weapon was already deployed aboard the USCGC Mellon, the sister ship of the BRP Gregorio Del Pilar and BRP Ramon Alcaraz, in January 1990.

The USCGC Mellon also received an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) suite, including the AN/SQS-26 sonar and Mark 46 torpedoes.

The ASW suite and Harpoon capability were removed due to fiscal constraints in the latter part of the 1990s, but served as a proof of capability for all USCG cutters.

The Harpoon is an all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile system, developed and manufactured by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing Defense, Space & Security).

In 2004, Boeing delivered the 7,000th Harpoon unit since the weapon's introduction in 1977. The missile system has also been further developed into a land-strike weapon, the standoff land attack missile.

The regular Harpoon uses active radar homing, and a low-level, sea-skimming cruise trajectory to improve survivability and lethality. The missile's launch platforms include:

* Fixed-wing aircraft (the AGM-84, without the solid-fuel rocket booster).

* Surface ships (the RGM-84, fitted with a solid-fuel rocket booster that detaches when expended, to allow the missile's main turbojet to maintain flight).

* Submarines (the UGM-84, fitted with a solid-fuel rocket booster and encapsulated in a container to enable submerged launch through a torpedo tube).

* Coastal defense batteries, from which it would be fired with a solid-fuel rocket booster.-Philippines News Agency (February 18, 2013)