SM-6 Evolved from the Missile Defense So Killer Ships

In January 2016, Ruben James confronted a team. Parked off the coast of Hawaii, the US Navy ship that has been disabled was then hit by a supersonic missile Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), sending Reuben James to the seabed. It was a successful test of an anti-ship missile.

But it should be known SM-6 is not anti-ship missiles, or at least not designed for that task. Standard Missile-6, built by Raytheon placed on Navy destroyers and cruisers US, is a defensive weapon designed to protect ships from attack enemy aircraft or missiles. So the tests were conducted in January and new details released on Sunday, March 6, 2016 marks the first time an anti-aircraft missile SM-6 has destroyed sea surface targets.

It also marks a significant milestone in the Navy's efforts to develop something called "distributed lethal," or the ability to attack naval targets of the ship at any time. Facing new threats at sea, the Navy wants to make enemies of his worry with any of their ships, not only aircraft carrier to be feared.

Significantly, the test also marked the latest step in a Pentagon effort to encourage existing weapons to be able to do more with re-engineering or minimal upgrade.

This effort is the middle way of budget constraints and concerns about new threats at sea facing the US Navy delayed strengthen itself since the end of the Cold War. In the years since then, the Navy has put money and focus on weapons that could strike targets on land and actively defend the mother ship from airborne threats.Destroyers and cruisers usually carry missiles SM-6 air defense and ground attack Tomahawk cruise missiles and put the vacancy on the ability of anti-system attack surface ships.

Disadvantages be felt as China expands the capabilities of maritime warfare, both with growth and increase its naval military presence in the South China Sea.

SM-6 is not the only US naval assets get expanded mission profiles. In February 2015, a ship-based Tomahawk missile was originally designed to attack ground targets also managed to hit a ship in tests demonstrate the ability that this system could also be used to carry out a war ship to ship.

Request a budget of US $ 484 as well as by the Pentagon used to convert a portion of the Tomahawk missile system to be a killer ship from a distance of up to 1,000 miles.

Raytheon has delivered about 250 missiles SM-6 to the US Navy, which was first used in 2013. The five-year Pentagon budget has allocated another US $ 2.9 billion for 625 more missiles, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in February.

In a separate test of tests that sank the Reuben James, the new missile SM-6 also destroyed five targets beyond the horizon or "over-the-horizon" where missile radar systems rely on themselves than on targeting information supplied by ship launch. It became the farthest range of test SM-6, until today.

While compared Tomahawk subsonic speeds, SM-6 took off at supersonic speeds that would make it more difficult for opponents to shoot down.

This is an important step that the Navy does not have to spend big money to develop anti-ship missiles that are completely new to simply change the interceptor of air defense and land attack cruise missiles into a ship killer.

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