US Navy embraces the versatile SM-6 missile system in various attacks modes

National Interest:
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... the less-well-known SM-6, which also is a Raytheon product, that could dominate the Navy's planning. Of the 10 major missiles that arm the Navy's 285-and-growing surface ships and submarines, only the SM-6 is capable of striking targets at sea, in the air and at the edge of the atmosphere.

The Navy plans to buy 1,800 SM-6s through 2026 at a total cost of $6.4 billion. The missile arms certain destroyers and cruisers equipped with the Aegis radar system. As of late 2018 the U.S. fleet included 38 Aegis warships that are compatible with the missile-defense interceptors such as the SM-6. The Navy wants to grow that number to 41 in 2019.

Only the SM-6 can sink ships, shoot down planes and intercept ballistic missiles. And with a few modifications, the SM-6 also could target enemy ground forces and even submarines. "A single missile in a single launch tube could thereby provide the warfighter with a range of effects," missile-expert Thomas Karako wrote for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The SM-6 is a Frankenstein's monster that features components Raytheon borrowed from other missile types. It combines the seeker and blast warhead of an Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile and the airframe of the Navy's older SM-2 surface-to-air missile.

When the SM-6 Block I first became operational in 2013, its main mission was shooting down aircraft and cruise missiles. "Additional capability was then added for terminal-phase intercept of ballistic missiles," Karako noted.

The Navy further tweaked the missile's sensor, producing the Block IA version. In a 2016 test, an SM-6 Block IA struck a target on the ocean's surface. Now the SM-6 also is an anti-ship missile.

The missile could continue to evolve. "Additional changes to the seeker and warhead could potentially add a land-attack mission to the SM-6," Karako pointed out.

According to Bryan Clark, a naval analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C., the Navy also could produce an anti-submarine version of the missile by replacing the warhead with a torpedo that would detach from the rocket body, similar to what the sea service's defunct ASROC missile did during the Cold War.
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It has become the Swiss Army Knife of naval missiles that can intercept enemy missiles as well as take an offensive role.  It is something the Iranians better keep in mind as they rattle sabers.

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