Despite an urgent need to counter new Chinese weapons designed to sink manoeuvring US aircraft carriers, the US Navy has not funded a surrogate missile required to test defences against the unprecedented threat, warns a report from the Pentagon's top tester.
The report highlighting the funding gap comes weeks after the Pentagon unveiled a new strategy that underscores the need to overcome threats like this emerging capability to hit moving warships at sea.
The latest annual report from J. Michael Gilmore, the Defense Department's operational testing chief, warns that developing a threat-representative anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) target for operational open-air trials has become an "immediate test-resource need" because China is fielding the DF-21D ASBM.
The new Chinese weapon "threatens U.S. and allied surface warships in the Western Pacific," Gilmore writes in the fiscal year 2011 report, released last week. DOD stated last summer in its report to Congress on China's military that the DF-21D is designed to attack large warships, including aircraft carriers, in that region—InsideDefense.com.
Comment
While the US Navy has acquired some 90 Coyote supersonic targets designed to give US warships a realistic simulation of an attack by virtually unstoppable cruise missiles, such as the Russian Klub and now the Chinese DF-21D, this report perhaps refers to another USN supersonic target program, under development by Alliant Techsystems.
So while the US Navy is properly concerned about defending itself against attack by such highly sophisticated weapons, are we to assume that those very threats now proliferating within our broader region will not be used against us in the event of hostilities? Aegis and SM-3 may be capable of downing ballistic missiles, but where maritime hostilities are concerned, it behoves us to keep our heads down until we have effective counters to ASCMs and ASBMs.