Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Scores Another Direct Hit

Aegis BMD Passes Key Test; Multiple Launches At Multiple Targets Next -- Breaking Defense

At 1:30 am this morning – 7:30 pm yesterday Hawaiian time — the Navy’s newest missile defense system marked its second successful shootdown in a month. Under what Lockheed Martin called an “operationally realistic scenario” – more on that in a moment – the USS Lake Erie picked up the target with its Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense “version 4.0.2” fire control system and launched a Raytheon Standard Missile-3 Block IB to blow it out of the Pacific sky.

Code-named FTM-22, the test was one more step towards an anti-missile system that could make North Korea or Iran think twice before launching their relatively small arsenals of ballistic missiles. And that’s the principal reason for the missile defense program: to deter those two countries.

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My Comment: I concur with this analysis. Shooting down a massive missile launch from Russia or China may not be in the cards .... but this system is effective against smaller countries with limited missile capabilities .... Iran and North Korea being the two principle countries that everyone is looking at.