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For more than 28 years, the frigate\u00a0USS Reuben James<\/em>\u00a0served out a distinguished career in the U.S. Navy. Then two years\u00a0after she retired, the former Oliver Hazard Perry<\/em>-class frigate ate an American missile and sank off the Hawaiian coast.<\/p>\n It was no accident.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a big deal. For one, the SM-6 is primarily an anti-aircraft weapon, and has a significantly longer range than the Navy\u2019s primary ship-to-ship missile, the Harpoon.<\/p>\n This is \u201ca newly publicized capability,\u201d said Eric Wertheim, a naval expert and author of the U.S. Naval Institute\u2019s authoritative Combat Fleets of the World<\/em><\/a>. \u201cIt gives so much more flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2013, Navy cruisers and destroyers started carrying SM-6s strictly in the anti-aircraft role.\u00a0In August 2015, the Pentagon announced that the destroyer USS\u00a0John Paul Jones<\/em> successfully intercepted<\/a> mock cruise and ballistic missiles in an earlier series of tests.<\/p>\n But now that the\u00a0SM-6 can hit warships, American destroyers and cruisers should soon have the ability to attack from longer ranges than before \u2014 and\u00a0carry fewer types of missiles during their patrols..<\/p>\n The Standard missile family has always had the ability to attack enemy ships, at least in theory. The Navy received the first anti-aircraft versions in 1968, and shortly thereafter began looking at expanding the missiles\u2019 roles.<\/p>\n With a state-of-the-art seeker for the era, the missile \u2014 with a few modifications \u2014 could have detected radar transmissions from enemy ships and home in. The Pentagon never bought that variant.<\/p>\n But in 1988, the Perry<\/em>-class frigate USS Simpson<\/em> lobbed four SM-2 surface-to-air missiles at the Iranian corvette Joshan<\/em> in the Persian Gulf, according to Lee Allen Zatarain\u2019s America\u2019s First Clash with Iran: The Tanker War, 1987-88<\/em><\/a>. The missile crippled the Joshan<\/em>, which Simpson<\/em>and other Navy warships finished off with cannon fire.<\/p>\n n the late 1990s,\u00a0the Navy again considered modifying\u00a0Standard missiles to support Marine beach assaults. These \u201cland attack\u201d SM-4s would be able to take out enemy artillery, missile launchers and other equipment.<\/p>\n However, the sailing branch and the leathernecks were unimpressed by the missile\u2019s inability to hit moving targets or blast its way through fortified structures. Besides, the missile\u2019s relatively small\u00a0250-pound warhead didn\u2019t pack enough punch.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s interesting that the SM-6, which has the same warhead as all other current Standard missile types, successfully took out\u00a0Reuben James<\/em>. \u201cThat says a lot about the power of a Mach-3 missile with a small warhead,\u201d Wertheim explained.<\/p>\n But it shouldn\u2019t be surprising.\u00a0The almost 22-foot-long SM-6 flies at more than three times the speed of sound.\u00a0While neither the Navy or Raytheon has described the damage to Reuben James<\/em> in detail, the missile doesn\u2019t necessarily need to carry a lot of explosives. Combined with improved precision, the sheer force of a 3,000-pound SM-6 slamming into a vessel\u2019s bridge, engine compartment or other vital areas makes\u00a0it a dangerous weapon.<\/p>\n \u201cAt high speeds you don\u2019t need a warhead,\u201d Wertheim noted, pointing to other high- and hyper-velocity projectile like advanced tank shells and experimental rail guns. \u201cThis is going to do a different mission from a Tomahawk.\u201d<\/p>\n The other advantage is distance. The SM-6 has a range of nearly 150 miles, more than double the range of the Harpoon.<\/p>\n Raytheon\u2019s Tomahawk cruise missile packs a 1,000-pound charge and has a range more than double that of the SM-6, depending on the version. America\u2019s\u00a0surface ships and submarines primarily use the Tomahawk to take out large, static targets on dry land.<\/p>\n The recent tests show that the SM-6 could supplement\u00a0those missiles\u00a0and others in development. The Pentagon asked for more than a billion dollars<\/a>\u00a0in its 2017 budget request\u00a0specifically for the anti-ship SM-6, improved Tomahawks that can hit moving targets \u2014 including ships \u2014 and the Long-Range Anti-Surface Warfare Missile.<\/p>\n The budget reflected increasing long-range threats to U.S.\u00a0surface ships from Iran, North Korea, Russia and China. Perhaps most worrisome, at a parade celebrating the end of World War II in September 2015, Beijing showed off a host of very long-range\u00a0ballistic missiles<\/a>, including the highly maneuverable DF-21D \u201ccarrier killer.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier that year, the Navy expressed concern about an unspecified Russian-made threat, likely a supersonic cruise missile. To put the threat into further perspective,\u00a0the Russian navy\u2019s 3M54T Kalibr missiles have a range of 410 miles.<\/p>\n \u201cNo ship in our inventory can disable another ship with its organic weapons at ranges greater than approximately 70 miles (the range of the Harpoon missile), and no ship has been added to the inventory since 1999 that can fire the Harpoon missile,\u201d Bryan McGrath, a naval consultant and former U.S. Navy officer, warned Congress<\/a> in December.<\/p>\n With SM-6s alone, U.S. warships will still be at a disadvantage, but a lesser one.<\/p>\n America\u2019s real edge\u00a0may instead be information.\u00a0Those ships may not even need to see<\/em> their targets to help out in a crisis. The Navy is working on a set of targeting gear \u2014\u00a0called\u00a0Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air \u2014 that will let friendly vessels, aircraft and other sources quickly\u00a0pass\u00a0data back and forth.<\/p>\n With the right systems installed, cruisers, destroyers or E-2D radar planes could conceivably relay target information to a warship with SM-6s ready to fire. This is an important consideration for the Navy\u2019s warships, which often sail the seas alone or in pairs, Wertheim said.<\/p>\n Two years ago, War Is Boring\u00a0simulated a skirmish<\/a> between American and Chinese warships in the South China Sea. Using the detailed computer wargame Command: Modern Naval\/Air Operations<\/a><\/em>, the Chinese vessels quickly out-ranged the U.S.\u2019s small Littoral Combat Ships.<\/p>\n In the\u00a0scenario, the Arleigh Burke<\/em>-class destroyer USS Halsey<\/em> tried in vain to save the corvettes by shooting down some of the Chinese anti-ship missiles with her SM-6s. What if Halsey<\/em> could have just attacked the enemy ships in the first place?<\/p>\n \u201cLonger range weapons keep our forces out of harm\u2019s way,\u201d Wertheim noted. \u201cIt allows you to protect assets very far away.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the anti-ship SM-6 is an evolutionary weapon, Raytheon\u00a0should be able to manufacture them on the cheap. The missile\u2019s basic design borrows heavily from later versions of the SM-2, and includes a version of the radar seeker from the equally successful AIM-120 air-to-air missile \u2014 another Raytheon product.<\/p>\nIn January, with the help of defense contractor Raytheon, the Arleigh Burke<\/em>-class destroyer USS John Paul Jones<\/em> hit the decommissioned frigate with a Standard Missile Six, or SM-6, according to a company statement<\/a>.<\/div>\n![\"john-paul-jones-sm-6_2109892\"](\"http:\/\/cdn.warisboring.com\/images\/20160310012451\/john-paul-jones-sm-6_2109892.jpg\")
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