In article ,
Peter Skelton wrote:

Think harder.

The USN is not nearly as motivated as the air force to develop an
air-based way to take out surface ships because their primary
weapon against them is the submarine.

The USN is probably better off overall if surface ships are hard
to take out from the air. It protects their submarine arm from
their real enemy, the USAF, on the battlefield that matters,
appropriations.

If I recall correctly, the harpoon anti-shipping missile was sort of a happy
accident. In that it was much more useful than merely allowing a P-3 Orion
to engage a surfaced submarine, before it had already launched all of the
cruise missiles and dived.