US Fast-Tracks New Ship-Killer Missile To Point At China

(MENAFN- Asia Times) The US Army's fast-tracked anti-ship missile could fill a key Pacific gap, but its deterrent value will hinge on production capacity, launcher survivability and China's continued preference for coercion over invasion in Taiwan.

Naval News reports the US Army is accelerating development of a new anti-ship variant of its Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), known as Increment 4, designed to strike maritime targets at ranges of up to 1,000 kilometers and operate in the Indo-Pacific.

The effort, led by the US Army as part of its broader long-range fires modernization, aims to equip High Mobility Rocket Artillery System (HIMARS) units with ground-based maritime strike capabilities deployable across contested littoral environments.

The missile is intended to function in GPS-denied conditions and engage both moving ships and relocatable land targets, addressing identified capability gaps in future conflict scenarios.

The initiative comes amid heightened US focus on countering China's naval power, with plans to deploy HIMARS units on austere islands near key maritime chokepoints to deny access. Training and exercises, including joint US-Philippine drills such as Balikatan 2026, have demonstrated deployment concepts, although the capability is not yet widely fielded.

Officials say the system will enhance joint force flexibility and strengthen deterrence by enabling rapid, mobile, and precise maritime strikes in a potential regional contingency.

At the tactical level, anti-ship ballistic missiles offer significant advantages over cruise missiles. Anti-ship ballistic missiles can travel at hypersonic speeds throughout their terminal phase, exceeding Mach 5 upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, whereas cruise missiles are restricted to low-altitude subsonic atmospheric flight.

The high terminal speed of anti-ship ballistic missiles may be necessary to overcome layered ship defenses, such as those on China's carrier strike groups (CSGs).

Daniel Rice, in a July 2024 report for the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI), highlights that the People's Liberation Army-Navy's (PLAN) carrier strategy focuses on a three-tiered defense system that supports blue-water operations with greater autonomy and extended range.

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Rice describes the CSG's defenses as organized into concentric defense zones: the“Outer Defense Zone” (185–400 kilometers) defended by submarines and J-15 fighters for long-range strike and ISR; the“Middle Defense Zone” (45–185 kilometers) patrolled by destroyers and frigates equipped with radar, VLS, and ASW assets; and the“Inner Defense Zone” (100 meters–45 kilometers) safeguarded by close-in weapons and point-defense systems.

Despite the tactical advantages of anti-ship ballistic missiles, their high cost relative to cruise missiles may limit their availability, thereby reducing their impact. Seth Jones notes in a January 2023 report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that the PrSM takes more than 15 months to produce.

Furthermore, Mark Cancian and Chris Park note in an April 2026 CSIS report that each PrSM costs US$1.6 million per round. Cancian and Park say the US had only 90 rounds before the start of Operation Epic Fury in Iran. At the time of their writing, they estimate that the US fired 40-70 rounds and that it would take up to 46 months to replenish stocks.

At the operational level, the anti-ship PrSM could complement US systems already deployed in the First Island Chain spanning Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

The PrSM, with its 1,000-kilometer range, could address a gap between the long-range Typhon, which can reach up to 2,000 kilometers, placing parts of mainland China within range, and the short-range Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS), with a 185-kilometer range.

While the Typhon provides deep-strike capabilities, the anti-ship PrSM could cover substantial parts of the East China Sea if deployed in southern Japan, or much of the South China Sea if deployed in the northern Philippines. Shorter-range systems, such as NMESIS, could cover chokepoints such as the Miyako Strait and the Bashi Channel.

However, these land-based launchers may be vulnerable in austere island environments. These locations' small area, limited sustainment facilities, and poor road infrastructure could limit movement routes and deployment locations for large systems such as the PrSM. This could make PrSM launchers relatively easy to locate using space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).

Beyond geographic and infrastructure constraints, limited allied air and missile defense capabilities, such as those of Japan and the Philippines, may not be enough to defend the PrSM launchers from drone and missile attacks.

Both Japan and the Philippines may have to allocate their limited interceptor stocks to protect critical infrastructure, such as power plants, fuel storage facilities, and population centers, rather than to defend US assets on their territory.

Even if the US opts to station additional missile defense assets in Japan and the Philippines, such as Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD), Operation Epic Fury has shown that Iran could overwhelm and defeat these systems with drone and missile saturation attacks.

The performance of the US missile defense against Iran raises serious questions regarding its effectiveness against a far more capable and well-resourced adversary, such as China. At the strategic level, the anti-ship PrSM could reinforce US conventional deterrence by denial in the Pacific by increasing the possible costs of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

In a January 2023 CSIS wargame, Mark Cancian and other writers show that even in scenarios favoring China, China lost 327 aircraft, 113 ships, alongside thousands of personnel killed, wounded, missing at sea, or captured as prisoners of war (POWs) on Taiwan.

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This logic, however, assumes conventional deterrence by denial can work-that the US defense industrial base can sustain production and that China no longer sees peaceful reunification with Taiwan as viable.

Jim Fein points out in a March 2026 Heritage Foundation article that US missile production capacity is critically limited, with output measured in the low hundreds annually-far below wartime needs.

Fein identifies gaps such as insufficient infrastructure, weak demand signals discouraging expansion, and workforce shortages. He also highlights brittle supply chains, reliance on sole-source suppliers, and procurement inefficiencies that constrain surge capacity and delay scaling of munitions production.

Furthermore, a US Intelligence Community report from March 2026 assesses that China does not currently plan to invade Taiwan in the near term, stating that leaders do not plan to execute an invasion and do not have a fixed timeline.

Instead, the report says China's preferred approach is peaceful or coercive unification short of conflict, seeking to achieve unification without the use of force, if possible, while continuing to build military capabilities as a contingency.

While the anti-ship PrSM could enhance US land-based maritime strikes in the Indo-Pacific by bridging the gap between Typhon and NMESIS and raising the costs of Chinese action against Taiwan, its effectiveness will depend on sustained production, launcher survivability and forward-force resilience.

More fundamentally, however, it may not be the right tool against China's longer-term strategy of coercion short of war toward Taiwan.

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