MDAA Says Tests "Independently Validates" Ship-Based Defense
Systems
Riki Ellison, Chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance,
MDAA, said this week the United States Navy independently validated
its Aegis Ship based missile defense capability in tests this
weekend... though one could argue the results were mixed, at
best.
"This past Saturday, off the coast of Hawaii, the United States
Navy conducted their own live test of their ballistic missile
defense systems with full operating crews of US sailors on the USS
Paul Hamilton (DDG-60) and USS Hopper (DDG-70)," Ellison said. "The
Japanese ship JS CHOKAI (DDG-176), who (sic) later this
month will be outfitted with defensive SM-3 ballistic missiles
observed, tracked and simulated a defensive engagement with the
target missiles. Two target missiles were fired from the Pacific
Range Missile Facility, in Barking Sands, Kauai simulating a
regional missile attack as the two US destroyers were defending an
area representing the country that the target missiles were fired
at."
"The Aegis destroyers and their systems tracked and
discriminated the two targets independent of other systems and put
together a firing solution which fired the two separate defensive
missiles from separate ships at their perspective targets. Just as
important was that the US Aegis destroyers were able to send and
coordinate the same information to their Japanese ally, the JS
CHOKAI (DDG-176) who if armed could have engaged as well. This
latter concept is called 'interoperability' and it was effectively
proven with the Japanese on this test."
There was a glitch in the system, however.
"One of the two fired SM-3s hit the target missile and destroyed
it, the other SM-3 missile failed to engage as its sensor which is
cooled to be effective in its ability to 'heat' seek did not cool
and thus could not track and engage the second target missile,"
Ellison explained. "Both of the SM-3 missiles that were used were
at the end of their life cycle and there was most likely a leak of
coolant caused by aging.
"However, if this scenario was a real situation, multiple shots
of SM-3s from multiple ships could have been fired at each
attacking missile to increase the success of engaging and
destroying the warheads," Ellison points out. "Each Aegis missile
defense equipped ship is more than capable of firing three or more
missiles at one incoming target missile to have close to 99%
protection on a defended populated area.
"This test by the United States Navy validates an already
successful system and demonstrates to those countries like North
Korea, Iran and Syria that the United States' National Security,
the US Armed Forces and her allies will be protected and
defended."