Nov 2, 2015 ASDNews Source : Lockheed Martin

Aegis, THAAD, C2BMC Integrated for Successful Test

Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and the Missile Defense Agency successfully conducted a multifaceted operational test of the ballistic missile defense system (BMDS) that resulted in the successful intercepts of multiple air and missile targets launched within moments of one another. In the test, the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Weapon System   and the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System aboard the USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) received support from a sensor command-and-control architecture that included an AN/TPY-2 radar, and the Command, Control, Battle Management and Communications ( C2BMC ) suite.

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March 19, 2015: Strategy Page

A South Korean investigation of a hacker attack on the computer network of the company that runs South Koreas’ nuclear power plant concluded that the attack came from North Korea. The hackers said they were protesting nuclear power and demanded South Korean nuclear plants be shut down. That was ignored and then the hackers released some stolen documents and demanded a ransom. That was apparently ignored as well. North Korea insists it had nothing to do with the attack but South Koreans have seen a growing number of such attacks that all point to North Korea as the source.

South Korea has openly called on China to stop using diplomatic threats and economic bribes in an effort to get South Korea to halt the installation of an anti-missile system. South Korea wants this American THAAD anti-ballistic missile defense system for protection from North Korean missile attack. The Chinese would not come right out and say it but they object mainly because THAAD would also make South Korea less vulnerable to intimidation by Chinese ballistic missiles. South Korea openly refused to comply with the Chinese threats and South Korean public opinion became even more enthusiastic about the high tech and very expensive (over $100 million per launcher and associated equipment) THAAD system. China sees South Korea more of an ally of the United States and a potential wartime foe than as an ally in attempts to keep North Korea from doing anything that would cause major economic and diplomatic problems (like starting a war).   

North Korea is also unhappy with a new UN study which documents North Korea kidnapping over 200,000 people since the early 1950s. Most of these were South Korean taken during the Korean War (1950-53) but hundreds were taken, from the 1960s on, from eleven other countries. About half these victims were Japanese and Japan has been putting economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea since the 1990s to try and get these people back as well as details of exactly who was taken. North Korea is willing to negotiate over this but these talks are stalled over how much North Korea wants in return for coming clean on these abductions. North Korea now wants Japanese help in getting the UN to back off on threats to charge North Korea with “crimes against humanity” because of the abductions. Negotiations continue, which is usually the best you can hope for when dealing with North Korea.

Although China has withheld some forms of aid to North Korea in an effort to halt the North Korean nuclear weapons program, economic aid has more than doubled, to nearly $7 billion a year. since 2009. That’s nearly 20 percent of North Korean GDP and is what is keeping the North Korean economy functioning. Despite that stranglehold on their survival, North Korea continues to resist Chinese “requests” that they get rid of their nuclear weapons program. China could arrange a coup against the ruling Kim dynasty but that risks plunging North Korea into chaos, rebellion or civil war (or all three), which would require a Chinese invasion and occupation to sort out. For the moment China prefers to be prudent and patient.

As serious a threat North Korea poses to the neighborhood, Americans are less concerned. Despite the declining ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) prospects a recent opinion poll in the United States showed that 84 percent of Americans believe ISIL is the most serious threat over the next decade. International terrorism also has 84 percent of Americans concerned. Iranian nukes frighten 77 percent followed by North Korea (64 percent) and Russia (49 percent, actually a tie with the Islamic effort to destroy Israel).

Despite continuing Chinese aid, North Korea knows that China could do more but isn’t because the Chinese are unhappy with North Koreas’ self-destructive economic policies and determination to build a large number of nuclear weapons. While South Korea, Japan and America see these nukes aimed at them China realizes that China is the traditional overlord of (and threat to) independent minded Koreans. So China sees these nukes as a threat to Chinese power in the region and that sort of insolence cannot be tolerated. While Westerners tend to ignore (or play down) this sort of thing it is taken for granted by Koreans and Chinese. With this in mind North Korea is forging stronger ties with Russia, which is also a historical foe of China that, at the moment, pretends to be a Chinese ally. Russia is in bad economic and diplomatic shape because of the falling price of oil and aggression against Western neighbors, but is still sending some economic aid to North Korea and pledging long-term friendship and cooperation.

Despite always giving China a hard time, North Korea encourages this “Chinese solution” by continuing to keep hard-liners from destroying the growing market economy. A growing number of people in the North Korean leadership understand (even if they don’t agree with) the superiority of a market economy over the communist command economy that has failed in every country it has been tried. For many North Koreans this failure shakes the faith in the system. But Chinese leaders point out that the communist bureaucrats in China have prospered along with the new entrepreneurial class. The key is in figuring out how to exploit the newly wealthy entrepreneurs without creating an angry opposition that can overthrow you. That’s what happened to most traditional monarchies in the 19th and 20th centuries and communism was supposed to be immune to that sort of thing but wasn’t. The last thing a thieving bureaucrat wants is democracy and many North Korean (and some Chinese) leaders fear that this is where it all leading.

In the short term all this new prosperity is causing the government problems closer to home, literally. Families of senior officials often contain wives or children who want more of the consumer goods and services they are seeing on illegal South Korean videos. In response many officials are not only taking bribes but seeking out opportunities to do so. Supreme leader Kim Jong Un knows, as do his Chinese counterparts, that this sort of thing eventually leads to a bloody (for the senior leadership) revolution. But stopping the corruption once it gets started is difficult and many historians of this sort of thing point that cleaning up this mess is, based on past experience, exceedingly difficult and rarely accomplished in dictatorships.

A growing problem in the south is the illegal debt (to North Korean people smuggling gangs) refugees from the north bring with them. The gangs up north will, for a fee of $10,000 to $20,000, get people out if North Korea, through China to a country (like Thailand) that tolerates the local South Korea embassy taking these refugees in and sending them to South Korea. The North Korean gangsters know how much money South Korea gives these refugees to adjust and how much refugees can earn in the more affluent south and adjusts their fees accordingly. In effect these refugees become employees of the gangs for years until their debt is paid off. If payments stop, the gang can kidnap or kill kin still in North Korea or China. The smuggling gangs work with the notorious “snakehead” gangs of China which have been going the same thing for Chinese for decades. The pressure on North Korea refugees is often so great that some commit suicide or turn to crime. The fees the North Korean snakeheads demand have skyrocketed in the past year as the North Korean government increased security on the Chinese border. This required more bribes to get people across as well as greater risk of running into secret police who cannot be bribed and are looking for snakeheads to prosecute and execute.

Despite the higher snakehead fees North Korean still pay it and get to South Korea. That is made possible by the growing market economy and prevalence of bribes which enables many more North Koreans to raise the cash to pay the snakeheads immediately on arrival. The snakeheads are fine with this. In South Korea these more affluent refugees often include government officials and military officers. These people had access to more information back home and are a prime source of data on overall conditions in the north. One of the more disturbing revelations is the growing hunger problem in the north and how that is impacting the military. Apparently North Korea has shifted more military resources to the nuclear and ballistic missile programs and part of that shift involved cutting food supplies to the troops. The way this works officers and their families still eat well but the most junior troops (recruits and those only in a year or so) are given just enough to stay alive. Soldiers who demonstrate their loyalty are given more food and this works to control the growing unrest in the ranks. What it does not control is the growing incidence of theft (especially of food or anything that can be sold or exchanged for food) by the constantly hunger young soldiers.

Canada revealed that one of their citizens (a clergyman who was born in South Korea) has been arrested in North Korea. The victim went to North Korea in January to do some humanitarian work. North Korea takes a dim view of this sort of thing and frequently arrests foreigners for that, especially if there are clergy. North Korea has not admitted to the arrest yet. Canada repeated its warnings to Canadians to stay out of North Korea.

March 15, 2015: In an effort to revive its tourism business North Korea has dropped the quarantine rules it introduced for tourists in late 2014. Quarantine caused a sharp drop in tourist traffic and spending. Back in November quarantine was seen as another new money making idea. This involved holding some visitors in isolation for 21 days to make sure they did not have Ebola. Thus in November North Korea began forcing most foreign visitors to remain in quarantine for 21 days after arrival. This was a scam to extract more money from visitors as they had to stay in designated hotels for the quarantine period and pay for it. Most business and all official visitors were not subject to the quarantine. No cases of Ebola have occurred in China or Korea. However China was considered vulnerable because there are over a million Chinese living in Africa, with over 100,000 living in areas where the Ebola deaths (over 5,000 by late 2014) have been highest. China had made preparations to deal with an Ebola outbreak in China and had experience in dealing with infectious diseases like this. The quarantine turned out to be an expensive mistake. This is especially the case sine, with much effort, North Korea had been able to increase the number of foreign tourists arriving each year to over 6,000. North Korea then went about creating more facilities (like a recently built ski resort) to accommodate them. While some tourists have been imprisoned, or even killed, North Korea is generally safer than most non-Western tourist destinations because there is virtually no crime. If you stay away from politics (the cause of most tourist problems) you are quite safe. Of course North Korea is very expensive as the government overcharges for everything and visitors are escorted everywhere. But for the very adventurous and affluent, North Korea is the place to be. North Korea needs the foreign exchange and have noted that many nations have turned tourism into major industries (often accounting for ten percent or more of GDP and accounting for most foreign exchange. The Ebola quarantine turned out to be a major mistake as tourist arrivals fell by over 90 percent. It took North Korean leaders several months to muster the courage to admit (without saying anything) that they were wrong and drop the quarantine. It is not clear if any senior officials were executed (as has long been the custom up there) for this expensive error in judgement.

March 12, 2015: North Korea test fired seven surface-to-air missiles off its east coast. This follows the firing of two SCUD ballistic missiles on the 2nd. These firing were supposed to be a form of protest against recent joint training exercises by American and South Korean forces. These training exercises are held regularly by the most capable military forces and the U.S. and South Korea have long done this. That bothers North Korea a lot because since the 1990s North Korea has been too poor to keep up in the training department. These days its nearly one million troops spend most of their time growing food and working for civilian enterprises to earn money to pay for fuel and other supplies the government can no longer afford to provide. North Korea announced these recent missile “tests” as they usually do without mentioning that they have a growing number of missiles that are reaching their expiration date (when too many aging components become unreliable) and conducting all these missile and rocket firing “tests” off the coasts is largely a case of “use it or lose it” combined with “let’s try and scare our enemies.” But this sort of thing has been going on for so long that it no longer has much shock appeal, but it is good training for the troops who operate these missiles and good for morale when these launches seem to go well. What is never revealed is if the guidance systems of these missiles were still functional. The guidance systems are components most vulnerable to aging and it is believed that many of these elderly missiles are launched with the guidance systems disabled so that a guidance system failure would not turn the missile firing into an obvious failure (as the missile careened about under the control of a failing guidance system).

March 11, 2015: South Korea announced a new law that allows it to assign police to guard foreign diplomats and other dignitaries the police believe might be subject to attack. This comes in the wake of the March 5th attack on the American ambassador by a deranged Korean nationalist who blames the United States for the division of Korea. A growing minority of South Koreans blame America for the division of Korea and some of these anti-America activists get violent from time to time. There have previously been attacks like this on American and South Korean officials but never one that involved a knife and left the victim bleeding. This attacker will be prosecuted and his attack appalled most South Koreans. North Korea praised the attacker (who openly praised North Korea and had visited there several times) but police have not been able to find any connection between this attack and North Korea. Then again North Korea has always encouraged South Korean conspiracy theorists who blame America, especially since many of these anti-American activists are pro-North Korea.

March 9, 2015: North Korea apologized to Bangladesh after a North Korean diplomat was caught trying to smuggle in 27 kg (59.4 pounds with $1.5 million) into Bangladesh. The senior diplomat had diplomatic immunity and apparently hoped that would protect his luggage from inspection. In this case it didn’t. North Korean diplomats are notorious crooks and since the 1990s have been caught smuggling or distributing drugs and counterfeit currency. More recently they have used their diplomatic immunity to smuggle illegal items (it is illegal to bring more than two kg of gold into Bangladesh without declaring it and paying a fee). In most countries where North Korea ganger diplomats are most active local police pay special attention to the North Koreans in general. Other nations react by severely limiting the number of North Korea diplomats admitted and given diplomatic immunity. In severe cases the North Korean embassy gets shut down and all North Koreans expelled. This keeps North Korea on good behavior, or at least urging its diplomats to try harder to not get caught. But the gangster diplomats are still a major source of foreign currency and useful contacts with powerful foreign gangsters so they remain at work.

North Korea needs all the economic help it can get because along with falling oil prices the prices for coal and iron ore (major North Korean exports) are also falling. This is hurting North Korea big time, far more than economic sanctions. The situation is not as dire as with oil (where the price has declined by more than half since 2014.) Coal and oil prices have fallen about 15 percent and the volume of exports (because of lower demand) have gone down about ten percent. This situation is getting worse as the Chinese economy (the main customer for the ore and coal) continues to slow. While mining is only about 14 percent of the North Korean economy it is the major source of foreign currency, which is needed to pay for imports.

March 2, 2015: Israel claims that Syria has transferred some long range (700 kilometers) SCUD ballistic missiles to Hezbollah. These missiles carry a half ton high-explosive warhead. These SCUDs are actually North Korean variants on the original Russian SCUD that have a smaller warhead to enable longer range.

February 28, 2015: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un made a big deal of ordering his military to prepare for war. This was done as a form of protest against large scale military training exercises, which North Korea can no longer afford. Protests, however, are cheap.

February 25, 2015: The UN released a report showing that North Korea continues to operate state-owned merchant ships for use in smuggling operations. The UN reported discovering several cases where North Korean ships earlier caught smuggling were now back in business with new names. This is just the latest round in the international effort to shut down the North Korean smuggling fleet. This fleet grew considerably in the 1990s and the U.S. soon began paying attention. Thus by  2006 the U.S. ordered that American citizens were no longer allowed to own, lease, operate or insure any vessel flagged by North Korea. This made it more difficult for North Korea to maintain its fleet of smuggling ships. At the time it was believed that about ten of the 80 ships registered in North Korea were American.

13 March 2015 Pacific Sentinel
 

China is working hard to prevent the deployment in South Korea of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense also known as THAAD, a highly effective anti-missile system to intercept North Korean and Chinese missiles, Bill Gertz, senior editor of the Washington Free Beacon, wrote on March 9.

China's president, Xi Jinping, is understood to have offered South Korea more trade and business opportunities in return for the Park Geun-hye administration relinquishing the idea of allowing the US to deploy the THAAD system to the Korean peninsula. In addition, Beijing is pressuring the Park administration to allow Chinese telecom equipment supplier Huawei to bid for telecom infrastructure projects in South Korea. Huawei has been blocked from securing contracts in the United States over fears that its network equipment could be used for espionage, fears the company says are unfounded.

Kim Min-seok, spokesperson for the South Korean defense ministry, openly declared that the nation has no plan to acquire the THAAD system from the United States during a press conference held on March 9. "Basically, the system would be good to better defend the country from missiles from North Korea, but we will make a judgment by putting the national interest as our top priority," Kim was quoted as saying by the Sputnik News based in Moscow. "We will establish an MD system of our own against North Korea's ballistic missiles by developing L-SAM and M-SAM surface-to-air missiles," Kim said.

Read the full story at Want China Times

Les nouveaux missiles de croisières sud-coréens Hyunmoo-3 and Hyunmoo-2 déployés durant les festivités du 65e anniversaire de l’armée à l’aéroport militaire de Seongnam, au sud de Séoul le 1er octobre 2013.

21 novembre 2013 Par Frédéric Ojardias, correspondant à Séoul - RFI

La Corée du Sud doit-elle acquérir de coûteux systèmes de défense anti-missiles américains ? Alors que le programme nucléaire et balistique du régime nord-coréen continue de progresser, Washington insiste pour que la Corée du Sud, son allié militaire, rejoigne son très sophistiqué bouclier anti-missile balistique. Mais les médias et les analystes sud-coréens s’inquiètent : une telle participation risque de fâcher le puissant voisin chinois et rendrait la Corée du Sud encore plus dépendante des Etats-Unis.

Ce bouclier anti-missile américain est un système extrêmement complexe dont l’objectif est de détecter puis d’intercepter en vol des missiles intercontinentaux ennemis, dotés d’ogives nucléaires. Cela nécessite un réseau sophistiqué de satellites, de radars, et de fusées.

Or, depuis que son ennemi nord-coréen a réussi, l’année dernière, le tir d’une fusée à longue portée, la Corée du Sud envisage d’acquérir ces systèmes stratégiques capables, en théorie, de détruire des missiles en vol à très haute altitude.

Les médias sud-coréens font même état de pressions de la part des Etats-Unis pour que Séoul achète ses derniers systèmes d’intercepteurs, appelés THAAD et SM3. Et beaucoup d’analystes sud-coréens s’inquiètent : ils redoutent qu’un tel achat soit en réalité le prélude à l’intégration complète de la Corée du Sud au bouclier américain.

C’est déjà le cas du Japon voisin. Tokyo, allié fidèle de Washington, a accepté d’intégrer son système de défense, et dans ce but a déjà installé un radar américain très sophistiqué sur son territoire.

Suite de l’article

SEOUL, 15 oct. (Yonhap)

L'armée envisage d'acquérir le système de défense antimissile à haute altitude THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) pour renforcer la capacité d'interception de son système KAMD (Korea’s Air and Missile Defense), a fait savoir ce mardi une source militaire, écartant la possibilité d’achat de missiles SM-3 (Standard Missile) pour les installer sur des destroyers Aegis.

«Nous envisageons d'établir un système de défense antimissile multicouches mais le SM-3 ne fait pas l'objet d’un examen», a déclaré la source sous couvert d'anonymat.

Dans un rapport soumis hier au député du Parti Saenuri, Yoo Seong-min, le ministère de la Défense a déclaré que «le missile SM-3 et les intercepteurs basés à terre (GBI : Ground-Based Interceptor) sont des systèmes d'interception de la phase intermédiaire et capables d'intercepter des missiles dans l'espace exo-atmosphérique alors que les THAAD et PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability) sont des systèmes destinés à intercepter des missiles dans les couches haute et basse de la phase terminale qui se diffèrent des SM-3 et GBI en termes d'interopérabilité et de performance».

Selon le rapport du ministère, le système THAAD est plus adapté au système de défense antimissile de couche basse de la phase terminale KAMD que l’armée coréenne vise à construire que le SM-3. Le système de défense antimissile compte trois phases : phase ascendante, phase intermédiaire et phase terminale.

Séoul cherche à améliorer son système de défense antimissile à celui de PAC-3 en innovant l'actuel PAC-2 mais la capacité d'interception du système PAC-3 a été remise en question au sein de l'armée.

«L'altitude d'interception du système PAC-3 est inférieure à 30 km, ce qui permet une seule chance d'intercepter des missiles et pourrait engendrer des dégâts en cas d'interception de missiles portant une ogive nucléaire ou des armes chimiques», a expliqué un officiel de l'armée. «Concernant le système THAAD, comme son altitude d'interception se situe entre 40 et 150 km, il est possible de profiter de deux occasions d'interception en le déployant avec le système PAC-3 et de réduire les dégâts lors de l’interception de missiles dans la couche haute», a-t-il ajouté.

Sep 13, 2013 ASDNews Source : US Navy

The Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Corona delivered its first quick-look analysis Sept. 13 of the Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) test earlier this week, kicking off the collaborative assessment process for the first operational test of the nation's Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS).

The test, named Flight Test Operational-01 (FTO-01), took place near the Army Kwajalein Atoll/Reagan Test Site and surrounding areas in the western Pacific and marked the first time combatants in different regions defended against near-simultaneous ballistic missile launches.

During the test, MDA successfully integrated Navy destroyer USS Decatur (DDG 73) with the Army's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and a space-based infrared detection system.

"This was a great feat for our Navy and the nation as we move toward an operational ballistic missile defense system," said Capt. Eric Ver Hage, commanding officer of NSWC Corona, a Naval Sea Systems Command field activity based in Norco. His command served as the lead analysis and assessment agent of the Navy's system in the test - Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) - providing missile telemetry and combat system data collection.

To conduct the test, MDA launched two medium-range ballistic missile targets in close sequence toward Kwajalein.

An Army-Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance and Control (AN/TPY-2) radar detected the target and relayed track information to the Command and Control, Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) system, which integrated, analyzed and synchronized combatants to formulate a real-time threat response among participating units.

The crew of Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Decatur provided the Navy's operational element, tracking and intercepting the first target missile with a missile of its own - a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IA. Soldiers from the Alpha Battery, 2nd Air Defense Artillery Regiment provided the Army's operational element, using the THAAD system to intercept the second target.

Aboard Decatur, NSWC Port Hueneme's Aegis BMD personnel extracted data from the ship's system, which subsequently traveled on Corona's innovative mini-Ku band satellite back to shore. The mini-Ku system cuts data transmission time by more than 95 percent from earlier versions, sending all missile telemetry and Aegis combat system data to the warfare center's Joint Warfare Assessment Laboratory (JWAL) where analysts from gathered to provide live monitoring of test data.

Initial data indicated the test elements performed as designed, but MDA officials have ongoing evaluations using the test data, starting with Corona's quick-look analysis.

"NSWC Corona will collaborate with the MDA Joint Analysis Team and Commander, Operational Test and Evaluation Force to provide an overall assessment of the BMDS from both an engineering and an operational perspective," said Tony Jones, NSWC Corona's Aegis BMD assessment lead.

As a core mission for the Navy, Aegis BMD capability defeats short- to intermediate-range ballistic missile threats with SM-3, as well as short-range ballistic missiles in the terminal phase with the Standard Missile-2 (SM-2).

Since the 1970s, Corona's sister division at NSWC Dahlgren has been intimately involved in the development, test, certification and fielding of almost every new baseline of the Aegis Weapon System (AWS), providing an integrated system that supports warfare on several fronts - air, surface, subsurface and strike.

At sea, the Navy has 28 Aegis BMD combatants - five Ticonderoga Class Cruisers and 23 Arleigh Burke-Class Destroyers - with 16 assigned to the Pacific Fleet and 12 to the Atlantic Fleet. MDA and the Navy plan to increase the number of BMD-capable ships to 30 by the end of 2013.

"As a former ship's captain, I'm excited by the positive results we're seeing," Ver Hage said. "Corona has been providing independent assessment of guided missile systems for nearly 50 years, and the progress our military is making toward building a comprehensive ballistic missile defense system is truly remarkable. It's an awesome capability we absolutely need."

As part of the Navy's Science and Engineering Enterprise, NSWC Corona leads the Navy in independent assessment, measurement and calibration standards and range systems engineering. The warfare center is home to three premier laboratories and assessment centers - the JWAL, the Measurement Science and Technology Lab, and the Daugherty Memorial Assessment Center -and employs approximately 2,000 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support personnel at its headquarters in Norco and at its detachment at Seal Beach, Calif.

Sep 12, 2013 ASDNews Source : Lockheed Martin Corporation

Lockheed Martin’s [NYSE: LMT] Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Weapon System and the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) successfully conducted a complex missile defense flight test resulting in the intercept of two medium-range ballistic missile targets in an operationally realistic environment.

The test was conducted at U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll/Reagan Test Site and surrounding areas in the western Pacific. The test stressed the ability of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense and THAAD Weapon Systems to defeat a raid of two near-simultaneous medium-range ballistic missile targets. Preliminary data indicate all test objectives were achieved.

“Today’s successful intercepts proved once again that the capability and maturity of the Aegis and THAAD systems are unequaled,” said Mathew Joyce, vice president and program manager for THAAD at Lockheed Martin. “This test demonstrated the benefits of a layered, interoperable approach that can help protect nations from increasing global security threats.”

“The sailors and soldiers manning Aegis BMD and THAAD performed as they would in an operational or tactical scenario,” said Nick Bucci, director for Aegis BMD Programs at Lockheed Martin. “This test showed that sailors and soldiers can plan and execute a complex engagement against multiple targets in an integrated and layered defense architecture that mimics a regional missile defense operation.”

An Army-Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance and Control (AN/TPY-2) radar in Forward Based Mode (FBM) detected the target and relayed track information to the Command Control Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) system to cue defending BMDS assets.

The USS Decatur detected and tracked the missile with its onboard AN/SPY-1 radar. The ship, equipped with the Aegis BMD weapon system, developed a fire control solution, launched a Standard Missile-3, Block IA missile and successfully intercepted the target.

The FBM radar acquired the target and sent tracking information to the C2BMC system. The THAAD system, using a second AN/TPY-2 radar, tracked the target. THAAD developed a fire control solution, launched a THAAD interceptor missile and successfully intercepted the medium-range ballistic missile. THAAD was operated by soldiers from the Alpha Battery, 2nd Air Defense Artillery Regiment.

Today’s event, designated Flight Test Operational-01, demonstrated integrated, layered, regional missile defense capabilities in a combined live-fire operational test. Soldiers, sailors and airmen from multiple Combatant Commands operated the systems and were provided a unique opportunity to refine operational doctrine and tactics while increasing confidence in the execution of integrated air and missile defense plans.

Ballistic Missile Defense System programs have completed 62 successful hit-to-kill intercepts in 78 flight test attempts since 2001.

Feb 8, 2012 By David Eshel - defense technology international

Tel Aviv - Israeli air force air and missile defenses are to be combined and reorganized to better protect the entire nation. Under this doctrine, defense of Israel’s skies will combine all forces designated to intercept enemy aircraft with all the assets allocated to intercept missiles, regardless of range. The multilayered, active defense will be run by a centralized interception-management center, which will also provide the common air picture that enables aircraft and interceptor missiles to safely coexist.

The philosophy of active defense—grouping the air, rocket and missile defense capabilities—underpins the new defensive concept, which also includes early-warning, passive defense and counter-strike capabilities. The air force’s operational structure will be similar to that used for aircraft, with the entire air-defense layout operating according to tasks assigned to units, rather than according to geographic deployment.

The new formation of the air-defense command reflects the fact that Israel’s air and missile defense assets must share the sky with fighters, helicopters, transports and unmanned aircraft, and coexist with civilian aviation flying national and international routes. Under old operational concepts, surface-to-air (SAM) sites were assigned “restricted zones” to protect strategic sites during wartime, leaving air force fighters to secure the majority of Israel’s airspace.

Now, modern active defenses are called on to maintain constant alert and initiate target engagement at very long distances, with missile trajectories passing safely through “live” airspace. With assets allocated throughout the country and covering extremely long ranges, the air-defense command will be able to better defend Israeli airspace, regardless of where its weapons are deployed.

Based on the current inventory of air-defense systems, the new deployment will maintain one air-defense wing and one rocket and missile-defense wing. The air-defense assets currently deployed are the MIM-23 Improved Hawk PIP3 and MIM-104 Patriot, both produced by Raytheon. Tactical air defenses are provided by MIM-92A Stinger missiles deployed on improved M163 mobile air defense guns.

The missile-defense wing maintains two principal assets, the Sword Shield unit operating the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Arrow 2 ASIP (improved versions from the Arrow System Improvement Program, or ASIP) since 1998, and the new Iron Dome unit, equipped with three Rafael Iron Dome counter-rocket, artillery and missile (C-RAM) systems.

The two systems were developed in Israel to meet specific requirements, distinctive to Israel at the time. The Arrow was designed to intercept Scud-type medium-range ballistic missiles, acquired by Iraq and Syria, while the Iron Dome, operational since 2011, was developed to defend against terrorist rocket attacks.

The Arrow 2 is designed to intercept ballistic missiles as they reenter the atmosphere in their terminal phase. Unlike the modern air-defense missiles employing hit-to-kill interceptors, the Arrow 2 introduced an “aimable” warhead to increase hit probability when passing the target at extremely high closing speed. The Arrow 2 ASIP represents the latest evolution of the Arrow system, capable of intercepting faster targets, launched from longer ranges. This capability was demonstrated in February 2011 against a target representing an Iranian Shahab 3 missile.

The next step in its evolution is the Arrow 3 exo-atmospheric missile interceptor, currently in development and about to undergo its first test. With a thrust-vectoring kill vehicle designed for hit-to-kill intercept, Arrow 3 will provide the upper tier in Israeli missile defenses, engaging hostile missiles in space, in their midcourse phase. The upper-layer intercept will significantly improve the defensive capability of the integrated system. The missile will be operated with existing Arrow assets, implementing the more flexible “shoot-shoot-look-shoot” intercept strategy over the linear “shoot-look-shoot” strategy currently guiding the Arrow.

Another important change will take place in 2013, as the new David’s Sling missile system, in final developmental testing at Rafael, reaches initial operational capability (IOC). Unlike the task-specific Arrow 2 and Iron Dome, David’s Sling was developed as a flexible, multipurpose weapon system capable of engaging aircraft, cruise missiles, ballistic and guided missiles. The interceptor missile is designed for land-based, maritime and airborne applications. A common missile, called Stunner, is fitted with a dual-band imaging infrared and radio-frequency seeker, as well as a multi-pulse rocket motor enabling all-weather operation and powerful kinematics, including endgame maneuverability at extended ranges.

David’s Sling will initially deploy with the air force’s air-defense wing, replacing the Hawk missiles. The air force’s is planning to field even more systems, as Patriot systems are phased out, enabling the air-defense command to fully integrate into the airspace defense with the new networked assets.

The Stunner missile has been demonstrated in test flights and the current phase will enable the team to expand testing of the entire system under the original development schedule. The system could reach IOC in 2013.

The system’s primary role will be to intercept medium- and long-range ballistic and guided rockets, such as the Fajr-5 and M-600, a Syrian copy of the Iranian Fateh-110, carrying half-ton warheads. These threats have a range of about 300 km (185 mi.). Other targets to be taken out by David’s Sling are intermediate-range ballistic missiles such as the Iranian BM-25, and the new Yakhont supersonic cruise missile, recently introduced by Syria.

The Yakhont threat would be held at risk by another air defense system developed in Israel—IAI’s Barak 8. The missile is designed to replace the existing Barak 1 point defense missile system deployed on the Israeli Saar 5 corvettes, providing extended networked air-defense protecting naval forces or offshore installations over a large area. Unlike the Arrow and David’s Sling, Barak 8 was developed without U.S. support and was designed primarily for the export market. Conceived mainly as a naval air-defense missile, Barak 8 is the cornerstone of the Indian Medium- and Long-Range SAM (MR-SAM/LR-SAM), a collaborative project undertaken by IAI and the Indian Defense Research & Development Organization (DRDO). The missile’s first flight test was in 2010 and the entire system is scheduled to enter developmental testing in Israel and India early this year. The weapon qualification program will include eight test firings.

Elements of the system have been delivered to India for installation on the new Kolkata-class (Project 15A) guided missile destroyers. The Israeli navy is trailing with its Saar 5B modernization plan, lacking a clear decision on the platform, contractor and weapon system. Promoting the system as a potential replacement of the existing Barak 1, IAI has developed a smaller assembly employing electronically scanning radar using a rotating single-plane design.

An important asset enabling full integration is the early warning and selective interception capability introduced with Israel’s new missile and C-RAM systems. Versions of the EL/M-2084 multimission target-acquisition radars operated with Iron Dome units, and to be included with future David’s Sling systems, detect and project the impact points of targets as soon as tracks are initiated.

Using phased-array technology, these radars support the different defensive layers, including early warning, providing for rapid alert for the civil population. The ability to predict an incoming missile’s impact point minutes before it actually strikes is key to Israel’s ability to deal with the affordability challenge of active defense. Secondly, this capability enables the missile defense units to ignore those rockets that will fall in open areas, focusing their attention and interceptor assets only at those targets posing the highest risk. It also enables the system to engage high-priority targets with more than one missile and at several points along its trajectory, maximizing the probability of interceptions.

The Israel air force is planning to deploy a fourth battery of Iron Dome in coming months and is mulling stationing it in Haifa Bay to protect Israel’s industrial hub. The defense ministry has a budget to manufacture an additional three Iron Dome batteries by the end of 2012. IAF operational requirements call for the deployment of about a dozen batteries along Israel’s northern and southern borders. Furthermore, Rafael is also proposing a seeker-less version of Iron Dome called Iron Flame to be used in counter-fire missions, attacking the launch sites of terrorists’ multiple-launch rocket systems.

With Iran considered by U.S. and Israeli intelligence to be on its way to obtaining a nuclear weapon, the allies are planning to hold their largest-ever joint exercise aimed at testing their common defense against ballistic missiles. The joint drills, dubbed Juniper Cobra and Austere Challenge, were to take place early this year but now are scheduled to take place in April or May, or possibly later. They will simulate Israel’s ballistic missile defense in action as part of a coalition operation.

The U.S. plans to deploy the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system for the drills. In such a scenario, Thaad could complement the Israeli Arrow missiles with high-altitude capabilities. In its U.S. deployment, Thaad complements the lower-altitude domain of the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC‑3) antimissile system. The drills also will include the establishment of an Israeli command post at U.S. European Command headquarters in Germany.

6.09.2011 Konstantin Bogdanov -- french.ruvr.ru