3 More U.S. Ships To Be Converted For BMD Role

[USS ALASKA]

DefenseNews.com
January 7, 2009

3 More U.S. Ships To Be Converted For BMD Role

By Christopher P. Cavas

Three more Aegis warships will be upgraded to take on the ballistic missile defense (BMD) role, bringing the number of ships with the capability to 21, Pentagon and industry sources confirmed Jan. 7.

The ships - two cruisers and one destroyer - will all be from the Atlantic Fleet, Lisa Callahan, Lockheed Martin's vice president for Maritime Ballistic Missile Defense programs, told reporters during a teleconference about Lockheed's BMD programs.

Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) - which oversees all Pentagon BMD programs - would not confirm that three ships have been selected, but acknowledged that "MDA and the Navy are discussing how to do two to four additional ships as soon as possible."

The Navy would make no official comment on the situation. But one source said "two to four" more ships would receive the upgrade. Pending notifications to Congress, an announcement might come as soon as next week, the source said.

Previously, the Navy and Lockheed have upgraded three cruisers and 15 destroyers with the ability to track and intercept enemy ballistic missiles. The Aegis BMD upgrade costs approximately $10 million to $12 million per ship, and includes new Aegis software and minor hardware adjustments.

Of the 18 ships already in the program, all but two are assigned to the Pacific Fleet and based at San Diego, Calif., Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and Yokosuka, Japan. The two Atlantic ships operate from Norfolk, Va.

But while the initial Aegis BMD effort was aimed at North Korean ballistic missiles, the U.S. also is concerned about Iran's potential to strike targets in Europe.

"I believe near term that we need an additional four to six Atlantic Fleet ships in order to give the necessary flexibility to the fleet commander to keep the presence forward," Rear Adm. Alan Hicks, program director for Aegis ballistic missile defense, told reporters last August.

A BMD communications system test was carried out earlier last summer when the Pearl Harbor-based destroyer Russell in the Mediterranean Sea and the San Diego-based destroyer Benfold in the Persian Gulf worked "with one another in detecting, tracking, sharing information and engaging a simulated ballistic missile by sharing data via a number of paths," according to information from 6th Fleet in Italy.

The first ships upgraded with Aegis BMD - or Aegis version 3.6 - were capable of handling long-range surveillance and tracking of enemy missiles and shooting down those while they were in the exo-atmosphere, or upper reaches of the earth's atmosphere.

The latest upgrade, 3.6.1, adds the ability to intercept targets in the terminal phase when they're heading back towards earth.

All 18 ships currently configured with Aegis BMD will receive the upgrade by June, said John Holly, Lockheed's vice president of Space Systems company. Work on the next three ships is expected to begin after those ships have been completed, Callahan added.

Navy Times staff writer Andrew Scutro contributed to this report.

[Bgile]

One think that worries me about this is whether this means these ships won't be available for their traditional roles. Hopefully the idea is to surge them if there is an imminent threat.

I also wonder how many of the BMD interceptors will be in their magazines, because that will obviously be removing some other weapon that would have been there.

[lwd]

I think the BMD interceptors are a version of the SM-3 standard missile. They can still be used in an AA role or even a surface atack roll although that would be a bit of a waste. The title is a bit off these ships still retain all their original capability but could well be called off normal missions and stationed so as to make optimum use of this capablility if needed.

[Bgile]

Yes, my concern was whether you have a multipurpose ship sitting around performing a BMD role. As I said, hopefully it is intended as a surge deployment.

I'm not sure whether the midified missiles are still AA capable, but they probably cost many times what the normal ones do.

[lwd]

According to the article at: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/hticbm ... 90112.aspx the SM3 is not useful vs aircraft and cost more than twice what an SM-2 does.