US Navy intercepts ballistic missiles with the aid of a dutch frigate.
With the aid of a dutch deserved provincian-class frigate, the US Navy
destroyer USS Paul Ignatius (DDG-117) has used two standard missile three
(SM-3) block ear interceptors to destroy ballistic missiles while they were
still in space during the formidable shield nato sea exercises off the coast
of Scotland.
The u.s navy being able to intercept ballistic missiles isn't new, but being
able to do so in partnership with nato ships is.
What is newsworthy is that until now, this sea capability was exclusive to
the united states because of the nature of the technology.
The SM-3 used in the tests is capable of reaching an altitude of 652 miles,
1050 kilometers and reaching a speed of mach 10 615 knots (7,613 miles per
hour / 12,251 km per hour), but that's useless without the systems capable
of detecting and tracking incoming missiles and then calculating the precise
intercept trajectories, which the ships provide.
The latter is particularly important because the interceptor doesn't use an
explosive warhead to destroy its target, but is what is called a kinetic
kill vehicle.
The combined hypersonic closing speed of the missile and interceptor is so
great that shear momentum is more than enough force for the job, which is
the equivalent of hitting a bullet with a bullet.
This means the calculations and course corrections must be incredibly
precise. During the formidable shield exercise the missiles were fired from
the hebrides range which is run by the british ministry of defense, off the
northwest coast of scotland.
What was different was that, instead of the uUS Navy ships carrying out the
intercept alone. The incoming ballistic missiles were targeted with the aid
of the Royal Netherlands Navy's HNLMS De-Seven provincian F-802 using its
advanced combat system suite.
The USS Paul Ignatius used the shared data to calculate a firing solution to
launch its interceptors. this teamwork was a demonstration that NATO forces
can now operate with the US Navy for ballistic missile defenses, allowing
for much greater flexibility when it comes to force deployments.
Since it is routine for nato and other western allied navies to work
together, a basic requirement is that the ships involved are able to do the
same jobs.
In this case, the ability to track and share fire control quality data
across multiple partners, domains and data networks. Formidable shield
included 15 ships, dozens of aircraft and about 3 300 personnel from the
United States, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
sorway and Spain and took place off the coasts of Scotland and Norway.
Today marks the dawn of a new day for maritime ballistic missile defense and
the seamless integration of combatant capability provided by the
international naval forces of naval striking and support forces NATO, said
commander task group integrated air and missile defense Captain Jonathan D
Lips.
