http://breakingdefense.com/2015/07/aegis-ashore-navy-needs-relief-from-land/?print=1
CAPITOL HILL: Take my mission please. The armed services are notorious for overselling their capabilities and grabbing turf to justify budgets. But when it comes to ballistic missile defense, the Navy feels so overburdened that it is talking up land-based alternatives as superior to its vaunted Aegis ships.
"Anything that goes ashoreis the best way to defend ashore," Rear Adm. Peter Fanta, director of surface warfare, told reporters after a June hearing on the Hill. "It allows more power, more aperture [for sensors], and a permanent presence there to cover that area."
An Aegis Ashore site, like those now being built in Romania and, soon, Poland, isn't limited by the size of a ship's hull. That means it can accommodate larger radar arrays to detect incoming missiles and larger numbers of interceptors to shoot them down. (Lockheed builds both the ship and shore versions of Aegis, which both fire the Raytheon Standard Missile). What's more, a land base doesn't have to sail home periodically for crew rest, training, and repairs.
"I have to maintain my ships, [so they] may come off the station for a little while," Fanta said. One Aegis Ashore site provides as many days of coverage as four Aegis ships but costs less than a single ship.
CAPITOL HILL: Take my mission please. The armed services are notorious for overselling their capabilities and grabbing turf to justify budgets. But when it comes to ballistic missile defense, the Navy feels so overburdened that it is talking up land-based alternatives as superior to its vaunted Aegis ships.
"Anything that goes ashoreis the best way to defend ashore," Rear Adm. Peter Fanta, director of surface warfare, told reporters after a June hearing on the Hill. "It allows more power, more aperture [for sensors], and a permanent presence there to cover that area."
An Aegis Ashore site, like those now being built in Romania and, soon, Poland, isn't limited by the size of a ship's hull. That means it can accommodate larger radar arrays to detect incoming missiles and larger numbers of interceptors to shoot them down. (Lockheed builds both the ship and shore versions of Aegis, which both fire the Raytheon Standard Missile). What's more, a land base doesn't have to sail home periodically for crew rest, training, and repairs.
"I have to maintain my ships, [so they] may come off the station for a little while," Fanta said. One Aegis Ashore site provides as many days of coverage as four Aegis ships but costs less than a single ship.