October 23, 2006

Locked and loaded
18 Aegis ships being fitted with anti-ballistic missile upgrade

By Christopher P. Cavas
Staff writer


The latest Navy Aegis ships fitted for the ballistic missile defense program can now handle anti-air warfare roles, as well, according to Navy and industry sources.

More Arleigh Burke-class destroyers may get the ballistic-missile modification, too.

Ships used in early BMD tests have been unable to handle air defense roles because of processing limitations on older military computers and the nature of the test program. But the latest Aegis BMD ship, the cruiser Shiloh, is fitted with Aegis BMD version 3.6, restoring the multimission capabilities of the Aegis system.

“We spiraled for the research and track mission and for search, track and engagement,” said Jimmy Carter, Lockheed Martin’s director of sea-based missile defense systems, on Sept. 26. “Those were not certified loads, they were only for emergency capability. You’d have to reboot the system under [anti-air warfare] or reboot under BMD.”

That’s no longer the case for the latest BMD upgrades.

“Everything before in engagement capability was done in special configuration for emergency activation,” Rear Adm. Brad Hicks, Aegis program director for the Missile Defense Agency, told Navy Times in late August. “This is our first capability that is a full-up, tactical capability that’s a normal fleet-issue software for the Aegis ships that ... returns the ship’s multimission capability. So when they load the Aegis BMD 3.6, they not only have a BMD capability — a tracking and engagement capability — they also get back their anti-air warfare capability and will be able to conduct self-defense.”

The new system was tested June 22 near Hawaii when the Shiloh combined its 3.6 Aegis system with the new Standard SM-3 Block IA missile to intercept a separating target warhead in its terminal phase.

Three Aegis destroyers also took part in the June test. One ship, fitted with the 3.0 upgrade, linked with a land-based radar to evaluate the Shiloh’s ability to track the incoming warhead. Two other destroyers, including the Japanese Aegis destroyer Kirishima, performed long-range surveillance and tracking.

After returning to Japan, the Kirishima is the first Japanese Aegis ship to be upgraded with Aegis BMD software.

Eighteen Navy Aegis ships — three cruisers and 15 destroyers — are being modified for the BMD mission. Two ships already are fitted with Aegis 3.6, the Shiloh and destroyer Stethem, according to Lockheed Martin. The other two cruisers, Lake Erie and Port Royal, will have it by the end of the year, along with the destroyers Curtis Wilbur and Decatur. All the ships will be capable of launching the SM-3 missile, which is designed to intercept a ballistic missile or warhead.

Ships already fitted with Aegis 3.0 include the destroyers John S. McCain, Fitzgerald, Russell, Milius, Paul Hamilton, John Paul Jones, Benfold, Hopper, O’Kane and Higgins. Those ships will be upgraded to the full 3.6 version by 2009, according to the Navy.

‘Flexible’ force

Some critics of the Navy BMD program have feared the ships would not be available for normal missions, such as escorting an aircraft carrier. But that won’t be the case, Hicks said.

“When those 18 ships are there, we’ll have to work out with the operational and combatant commanders … how we will deploy those ships as part of their normal battle-group operations,” he said.

That’s a key element in allocating so many ships to the BMD role, one analyst said.

“It seems to me the Navy was reluctant to fully embrace the BMD missions for fear that more of the fleet would be dedicated to national missile defense,” said Bob Work, a naval analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. “This provides a much more flexible missile defense force.”

The Navy also is considering adding the BMD upgrades to the DDG destroyer modernization program scheduled to begin in 2010, shortly before the last new DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is completed. That program now is limited to hull, mechanical and electrical system improvements and some minor combat system upgrades.

But open architecture efforts and inclusion of more commercial-off-the-shelf elements into the Aegis system could make it easier and more affordable to add BMD functions to all of the ships, the sources said, and the upgrades also could be applied to Aegis systems on non-U.S. ships.












Raytheon RIM-161 Standard SM-3

The SM-3 (Standard Missile 3) is a derivative of the RIM-156 Standard SM-2ER Block IV missile, and is the missile component of the U.S. Navy's forthcoming theater-wide ballistic missile defense system, called NTW-TBMD (Navy Theater Wide - Theater Ballistic Missile Defense). It is an upper-tier ballistic missile defense weapon, originally planned to complement the lower-tier SM-2ER Block IV A, but the latter has been cancelled in December 2001.



The SM-3 missile, designated RIM-161A, uses the basic SM-2ER Block IV A airframe and propulsion, and adds a third stage rocket motor (a.k.a. Advanced Solid Axial Starge, ASAS, made by Alliant Techsystems), a GPS/INS guidance section (a.k.a. GAINS, GPS-Aided Inertial Navigation System), and a LEAP (Lightweight Exo-Atmospheric Projectile) kinetic warhead (i.e. a non-explosive hit-to-kill warhead). The launching ships will be updated with Aegis LEAP Intercept (ALI) computer soft- and hardware.

Oh look, the Japanese got one too!

Hmmmmm...

tag

Quoted: Oh look, the Japanese got one too! Hmmmmm...

It may get some work on the Two Way Range.

Damn I that this was about the new Kimber. LOL

Wonder if the Aussies are getting in on this as well

Kim Jong Il may be in for a big disappointment. His missiles already have enough trouble staying in the air.

Apparently we can fuck around for 3 more years before its ready on the other ships...

I Guess they dont just download a new patch like Windoze XP auto updates.

Surely they can speed the process up, thanks to our determined NK neighbors...

Thanks to our friend and favorite war-fiction writer Victor Corpus, the helpless and emminently evil United States will have more capable warships that the Chinese secret rocket-propelled mines and torpedoes can sink.

That fucking guy is such a tweak.

The Chinese would fare VERY POORLY if they had to come up against the United States Navy.

Resident blackshoes?