China tensions prompt U.S. Navy race to reload missiles at sea

Rearming destroyers can take them out of combat for two months. The U.S. wants to fix that

- Daniel Michaels, Mike Cherney & Tonia Cowan

U.S. Navy destroyer can fire dozens of cruise missiles within minutes. Reloading the deadly warship back in port can take two months. In a war against China, that could be a fatal weakness.

To overcome the delay, Navy engineers pulled a 30-year-old crane out of storage, wired it up to computers, and used it to build a new prototype reloading system called the Transferrable Reload At-sea Method. TRAM, as it is known, promises to slash the time needed for missile reloading, potentially to just days.

"The ability to rearm at sea will be critical to any future conflict in the Pacific," said Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro after a recent test of TRAM off the California coast, to which The Wall Street Journal was granted exclusive access.

Until recently, the Navy didn't feel much need for speed in rearming its biggest missile-firing warships. They only occasionally launched large numbers of Tomahawk cruise missiles or other pricey projectiles.

Now, Pentagon strategists worry that if fighting broke out in the western Pacific-potentially 5,000 miles from a secure Navy base-destroyers, cruisers and other big warships would run out of vital ammunition within days, or maybe hours.

Seeking to plug that supply gap, Del Toro tasked commanders and engineers with finding ways to reload the fleet's launch systems at remote ports or even on the high seas. Otherwise, U.S. ships might need to sail back to bases in Hawaii or California to do so-putting them out of action for weeks.

Slow reloading has been causing the Navy headaches in the Red Sea. Warships deployed there to defend cargo ships from Houthi rebels in Yemen must sail through the Suez Canal and to ports in Greece or Spain to reload, leaving the fight for extended periods.