Pentagon, Lawmakers Deal Blows to Navy Fast-Strike Missile Effort

Senate appropriators on Tuesday moved to cancel a U.S. Navy program to develop a medium-range missile for launch by fast-attack submarines, but only after top Defense Department brass significantly restricted the Virginia Payload Module in a secret meeting late last year, Global Security Newswire has learned.

Lawmakers on the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee said their markup of fiscal 2014 funding legislation for the Defense Department “terminates the Virginia Payload Module due to high cost, risk, and lack of validated requirement.”

The move comes just 18 months after the Pentagon’s high-profile proposal to use the new missile aboard Virginia-class submarines as a non-nuclear means of quickly hitting targets almost anywhere around the world.

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