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The Navy's Air Defense Missile Will Become a Supersonic Ship Killer
Popular Mechanics ^ | February 10th, 2016 | By Eric Tegler

Posted on 02/11/2016 8:30:05 PM PST by Mariner

Back in 2014, the guided missile-carrying destroyer USS John Paul Jones made history. During a live fire missile tests, one of its SM-6 air defense missiles completed the longest surface-to-air engagement in naval history. The Navy wouldn't say the exact range of the missile for security's sake, but the ability to take out incoming missiles or aircraft at long range is obviously valuable.

Now, that ability is expanding. The Navy says it will modify the Raytheon-built Standard Missile-6 to act as a supersonic anti-ship missile. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has confirmed the service was developing the anti-ship SM-6 in an effort to give Navy cruisers and destroyers a weapon capable of reaching such targets more than 200 nautical miles away.

"We are going to create a brand-new capability," Carter said during a February 10 press conference in San Diego. "We're modifying the SM-6 so that in addition to missile defense, it can also target enemy ships at sea at very long ranges."

(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
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It took me a while to figure out how they were going to make a missile with a 137lb warhead a ship killer.

Then it dawned on me: Aluminum ignites at 1,400 deg F.

When one of these hits the aluminum superstructure of a modern warship at Mach 3.5, that warhead is there to just ignite the vaporized aluminum.

It may be a revolution in anti-ship missiles.

1 posted on 02/11/2016 8:30:05 PM PST by Mariner
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To: Mariner

Playing ‘catch up with China’ again are we?


2 posted on 02/11/2016 8:33:20 PM PST by CivilWarBrewing (u)
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To: Mariner; markomalley; DYngbld; TADSLOS; xsrdx; big'ol_freeper; Mark17; mikefive; JDoutrider; ...

Active Duty ping.


3 posted on 02/11/2016 8:34:18 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
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To: Mariner

i dont know much about military warfare and technology, but it seems like a major war between major powers would be over a lot faster than WWII.

so many hi tech weapons to take out so many ships and jets and ground artillery so quickly.

i wonder just how many war ships and jets there are combined, in the world.


4 posted on 02/11/2016 8:34:21 PM PST by dp0622
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To: CivilWarBrewing
Nonsense.

The Chinese have nothing as capable.

Active homing, mach 3.5, 200+ miles range and it attacks not along the surface, but from above.

And hits moving targets.

Sure, they've put concepts on the drawing board with the "Carrier Killer", but that's a pipe dream that will be at least a dozen years in development.

5 posted on 02/11/2016 8:37:31 PM PST by Mariner (War Criminal #18 - Be The Leaderless Resistance)
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To: Mariner

The Russian Yakhont ...

The supersonic P-800 Yakhont (Gem) is a ramjet version of P-80 Zubr [SS-N-7 Starbright]. The Yakhont missile has a range of 300 kilometers, the capacity to carry a 200-kilogram warhead and the unique ability of being able to cruise several meters above the water surface, making it difficult to detect and intercept.



6 posted on 02/11/2016 8:38:31 PM PST by sparklite2 ( "The white man is the Jew of Liberal Fascism." -Jonah Goldberg)
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To: Mariner

We have supersonic ships?


7 posted on 02/11/2016 8:56:45 PM PST by Lx (Do you like it? Do you like it, Scott? I call it, "Mr. & Mrs. Tenorman Chili.")
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To: Mariner
The Navy's Air Defense Missile Will Become a Supersonic Ship Killer

What country has supersonic ships?

8 posted on 02/11/2016 8:58:54 PM PST by arthurus (Het is waar. Tutti i liberali sono feccia.)
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To: Mariner

Supersonic depleted uranium perpetrator going straight down would punch a hole clean thru.

Davy Jones does the rest.


9 posted on 02/11/2016 9:04:49 PM PST by Delta 21 (Patiently waiting for the jack booted kick at my door.)
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To: Mariner

“It took me a while to figure out how they were going to make a missile with a 137lb warhead a ship killer. “

Well, if it’s 137 lbs of Plutonium, I think no problem.


10 posted on 02/11/2016 9:08:27 PM PST by PLMerite (The Revolution...will not be kind.)
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To: sparklite2

“The Russian Yakhont ...”

I would like to know what the cost of the Russian missile is compared to this US missile. Bet that it’s cheaper and easier to field. Of course, if they work and the target is worthwhile, it doesn’t matter...but we have a habit of dropping precision, high-tech munitions on Toyota trucks with a machine gun mounted in the bed.


11 posted on 02/11/2016 9:27:03 PM PST by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day".)
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To: Delta 21

You would think that would work but these ships have all kinds of compartmentalization and quick-response repair crews. And that’s an expensive hole. IMO, nothing beats a torpedo blowing up under a ship, cavitating the water under the middle of the ship and essentially letting gravity break the ship in half down the middle. No ship is strong enough to survive that.


12 posted on 02/11/2016 9:32:04 PM PST by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day".)
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To: Mariner

Sounds good.

Also, as crazy as it sounds, I think we need to develop some sort of jet pack not too far removed from something out of Lost in Space but actually a serious effort at new technology, where our special forces in the Navy or Marines as part of their own operative unit(s) have the ability to literally fly across the top of the ground, with the ability to cut in and out of trees at slow speed then faster and the unit they wear as the pack can only launch using a finger print security. This is totally science fiction stuff, I know, but it is coming.


13 posted on 02/11/2016 9:36:00 PM PST by ShivaFan
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To: Mariner

The Chinese are on their way to developing fusion. What if they were able to make a fusion bomb. Think about that.


14 posted on 02/11/2016 9:37:17 PM PST by Crucial (At the heart all leftidsts is the fear that the truth is bigger than themselves.)
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To: ShivaFan

In other words these type of flying ‘infantry’ literally become flying Angels of Death.


15 posted on 02/11/2016 9:37:46 PM PST by ShivaFan
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To: ShivaFan

Kind of like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sV_j_BpWHg


16 posted on 02/11/2016 9:49:34 PM PST by Rebelbase (Best election ever. Sick of it already, but best election ever.)
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To: Mariner

The enemy islamist in the White House is actually allowing this?

For use against yachts?...


17 posted on 02/11/2016 9:52:02 PM PST by onedoug
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To: Mariner
When one of these hits the aluminum superstructure of a modern warship at Mach 3.5, that warhead is there to just ignite the vaporized aluminum.

Exactly what I have been telling the "CIWS rules" idiots for years here. Mach 3+ buckshot on an aluminum superstructure means you are dead.

Yeah, you hit it, now what about that load of shrapnel coming at you?

18 posted on 02/11/2016 9:56:14 PM PST by doorgunner69
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To: Crucial

We’ve already done that. It’s called a thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb ;o)


19 posted on 02/11/2016 9:56:37 PM PST by Hoosier-Daddy ("Washington, DC. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious")
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To: arthurus
What country has supersonic ships?

Always one of you/us uber-literal buzzkills in the crowd.

Great catch.

20 posted on 02/11/2016 10:00:17 PM PST by doorgunner69
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