The Navy is reloading a cruiser’s missiles at sea for the first time

Last week, the Navy replenished a warship’s weapons at sea for the first time in what Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro called a “groundbreaking” update to the surface fleet’s combat readiness.

The cruiser Chosin and its sailors used the Transferable Reload At-sea Method device, known as a TRAM, to load the ship’s MK 41 Vertical Launching System off the coast of San Diego on Friday.

The TRAM prototype allows warships to rearm during the ongoing resupply process, when supply ships deliver fuel, food and other essential supplies. This ability to reload at sea instead of on land saves fighting ships time and keeps them in the fight instead of having to go to port to reload, the service said.

For the at-sea demonstration, the Chosin worked with the Military Sealift Command’s dry cargo and ammunition ship Washington Chambers to connect and transfer the missile canister to the cruiser. The team then used TRAM to transport the missile canister along rails connected to the cruiser’s VLS modules to successfully place it into a VLS cell, the Navy said.

The Navy plans to deploy TRAM in the next two to three years.

“Today we demonstrated how disruptive TRAM truly is – and the powerful deterrent effect it will have on our competitors,” Del Toro said in a statement. “This demonstration marks an important milestone on the path to perfecting this capability and deploying it for sustained use at sea.”

During a speech at Columbia University, he first identified TRAM as one of his top priorities in 2022, calling it a “sustainable, persistent forward strike capability in wartime.”

The Navy tested a land-based demonstration of TRAM at Port Hueneme Division’s Naval Surface Warfare Center in California back in July.