Patrick Durrant | Sydney

In January at the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Hawaii, a Raytheon Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) successfully engaged the decommissioned FFG-7 target ship USS Reuben James in a flight test.

The test was significant in that it demonstrated SM-6’s expanded mission capability in a third key area: Anti-surface warfare (ASuW). The missile, slated for Navy's Air Warfare Destroyer arsenal, had already proved itself as an Anti-Air Warfare (AAW) weapon and most recently last July it was successfully flown in the Sea-Based Terminal mode (defence against a ballistic missile in its terminal phase of flight).

ADM spoke with Raytheon senior program director (SM-6) Mike Campisi in Arizona about the tests, which he said demonstrated the US Navy’s concept of “distributed lethality”: employing ships in dispersed formations to increase the offensive might of the surface force and enabling future options for the joint force commander.

“We did a series of five stressing tests, four were Final Operation Test & Evaluation (FOT&E) and one was a Tac Demo (tactical demonstration of the ASuW capability),” Campisi said.

The USS John Paul Jones fired the SM-6 during the tests; another Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer USS Gridley was on station as the assist ship.

“We achieved two records – one was the longest shot in naval history and the other was the longest cross-range shot in naval history,” he said.

There was also a scenario where two missiles were fired against two targets, a test designed to test the stresses on multiple missiles approaching targets at very high speed.

“It will fly in the best way possible to engage the target identified – one missile does everything.”

“You always have a question of missile control when you put multiple weapons up in the air, for instance will a missile follow what we have prescribed in terms of what to target, when to target, what to engage first and what to engage second,” Campisi explained.

The successful test marks the culmination of 24 months since it was decided to bring the additional Sea-Based terminal and ASuW capabilities to SM-6, which was initially identified basically as an extension to SM-2, a purely AAW weapon.

“We found that with the sized-up AMRAAM active front end, coupled with a few other things – for example the back end of an SM-3 and the aerodynamics of an SM-2 – plus Aegis improvements and Naval Integrated Fire Control - Counter Air (NIFC-CA) coming onto the horizon, suddenly there was a lot more capability that was discovered,” Campisi said.

The Raytheon SM-6 team started simulating and “doing a lot of what-ifs” within the SM community, including the US Government, thinktanks and technical arms.

“We got to a point where we realised and then developed and put into the missile the Sea-Based terminal – so we proved SM-6 could do layered ballistic missile defence last July, then we needed to turn the coin around and focus on distributed lethality.”

Campisi said both Raytheon and the USN were thrilled to see the tests go just as well as the earlier simulations. He said the FOT&E tests represented the conclusion of the FOT&E phase of the program and FOC was now expected in March 2017.

“There are no more tests planned - this will be deployed in the fourth quarter, right now we are shipping the SM-6 Dual-1 missiles which have both the AAW and Sea-Based terminal capability. So it’s going to be tri-capable as of September,” Campisi confirmed.

There are no hardware changes for the missile with the ASuW capability, with a software patch the only requirement to run that profile. Campisi explained that based on the information it derives from Aegis, Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), and NIFC-CA, the ship will send a signal to the missile, which tells it which software leg to run.

“Based on that it will fly in the best way possible to engage the target identified – one missile does everything,” he said.

ADM asked if the missile would operate in a sea-skimming mode but Campisi declined to answer. He did confirm that the system could be launched from a land base (a key new capability outlined in the 2016 Defence White Paper, though the ADF system would need to be deployable).

In relation to speed, Campisi could only confirm what we already know about SM-6 – that it's supersonic.

“Well it’s faster than a cruise missile,” he joked.