Posted on 02/24/2005 5:55:22 PM PST by familyop
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A missile fired from a U.S. Navy ship off Kauai, Hawaii, intercepted and destroyed a mock warhead on Thursday, the fifth success in six such test of the fledgling U.S. anti-missile shield's sea-based leg, the Pentagon announced.
"We had a successful hit-to-kill intercept," said Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.
The target was tracked from the cruiser Lake Erie using the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Weapon System developed by Lockheed Martin Corp. It was launched from the U.S. Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, Kauai.
The ship fired a Standard Missile (SM)-3 at the target outside the earth's atmosphere during the descent phase of flight, Lockheed said. Raytheon Co. is developing the SM-3.
The Defense Department plans to field up to 30 SM-3 missiles on Aegis-equipped ships by 2007 to destroy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles in mid-flight. Other systems are being developed to defend at different stages.
For the ground-based mid-course leg of ballistic missile defense, managed for the Pentagon by Boeing Co., five of eight shoot down tests have been completed successfully.
Interceptor missiles failed to launch from their silos in the last two ground-based tests because of hardware and software glitches.
The Pentagon plans to spend roughly $10 billion a year over the next five years on all aspects of missile defense. The initial "layered" shield is designed to thwart missiles that could be fired from North Korea, possibly tipped with nuclear, chemical or germ warheads.
Last fall, the Japan-based Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Curtis Wilbur became the first component of the anti-missile shield to be put on patrol in the Sea of Japan to guard against North Korean attack.
Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier, calls Aegis the world's premier naval defense system, capable of defending against air, surface and underwater threats.
Currently deployed on 68 U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers, the Aegis system is also being supplied to Spain, Japan, South Korea, Norway and Australia.
Only until she's elected, though.
Only until she's elected, though.
ok now i get it thank you
Wow. Hehe, I'll bet they ran around when that anchor went. We were in Souda Bay and the Kennedy lost it's main anchor. You can imagine the hate and discontent that engendered. The entire chain parted at the bitter end. They did a recovery on that chain, for sure.
Thanks for your stories...I have a huge amount of respect for tin can sailors.
MSM.....jeez, what losers.
There = They're
"To see her on the Senate Armed Services Committee is enough to make me grind all my teeth to stubs. God help us."
Ditto!! I seem to be wearing my anti-grind night guard 24/7
Hilliary Clinton is a case study of the contempt that liberals feel for the average person.
She is one of the most anti-military people to hold government office. The story related by Gary Aldrich in "Unlimited Access" is by all accounts true. Some Air Force guy passed her and said "Good Morning" or some such thing, and she hissed at him something to the effect of "You people don't talk to me. I don't want to see you..." etc.
She is still the same piece of crap she was back in 1973. She holds the same values regarding the military now that she did then. But she is trying to change her spots, and is apparently confident that people won't notice how bold faced dishonest she is.
Don't worry, THAAD is currently in production and has an advanced program for a booster update to expand the area being defended. Lots of success (finally). I am currently retired, off the program.
Good. We need defensive missiles not only to protect the U.S., but to protect our carrier battle groups in places like Taiwan.
Put 'em on the ground in Taiwan; facing west.
I know...my only point is that, IMHO, we would have been a decade ahead if not for the foolish decisions of the administration in the 90's.
Oh, yeah. We referred to the former as "our friendly DON-2." Always there, right on the edge of our range, down in the 'grass'. I always wondered if he knew that we could see him. ;-) We had a WLR-1G and an SLQ-26 (active gear). Our 899 was constantly burning out bearings. When swapping parts with other ships, those bearings were like gold. At one point we had to have the hull techs turn us some bronze bushings, 'cause the bearings absolutely could not be had. I hated the AS-899.
Have quite a few stories about Krivaks and Krestas too. I don't care what anybody says about the Soviets; those guys had some serious stones.
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