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."

FMI: www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org, www.navy.mil