By Geoff Fein
The 3rd Fleet is evaluating data collated from last month’s Stellar Dagger exercise that showcased for the first time a simultaneous downing of a ballistic missile in its terminal phase and an incoming anti-ship cruise missile, an official said.
Additionally, Stellar Dagger was the second time 3rd Fleet stood up the Maritime Operations Center (MOC) in a Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) exercise, Cmdr. David Dunn, 3rd Fleet BMD officer, told Defense Daily yesterday in a telephone interview.
The initial standing up of the MOC took place during Pacific Blitz, a BMD exercise that was held late last October, he said. “This time we were standing up the MOC with a full time [staff].”
“We had people simulate the white cell…all the various people we would have in a full-blown war fighting scenario,” Dunn said.
“The only reason 3rd Fleet wants to get involved with the MOC is really to test our ability to command and control our ships,” he added. “This is the first time we took [an actual] carrier strike group (CSG). In Pacific Blitz, we had somebody simulating that role, but this time we actually took a real CSG and [told them] ‘you are part of this command and control hierarchy,’ and made sure we were exercising it the way we would if we were to fight a war together.”
The Navy is now in the process of collating lessons learned from the exercise, including looking at how did the team do inside the MOC, how did the team do in coordinating all the aspects of Stellar Dagger with higher authority, how did the 3rd Fleet do in command and control of its BMD ship–the USS Benfold (DDG-65)–how did we do for command and control down to the strike group, every level up and down the chain of command, Dunn said.
“The exercise went really, really smoothly. We practiced it a lot. I would say what we did the first time we practiced was not what we did the week of March 23,” he said. “We learned lessons as we went along. We improved the process and this exercise went a lot better than even Pacific Blitz did and that was a success as well.”
The biggest success, of course, Dunn noted, was the ability to simultaneously employ a Raytheon [RTN] Standard Missile (SM)-2 Block IIIA against a BQM-74–low altitude cruise missile–and a SM-2 Block IV against a ballistic missile in its terminal phase. “The threats are completely different, therefore our engagement weapon has to be completely different as well.”
Stellar Dagger, which took place March 24 through 26 off the coast of California, also tested the latest version of the computer program that controls Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] Aegis Weapon System, Dunn said.
“We have evolved the BMD computer system over the last several years…since 2004…since we have been using these new computer programs, and the latest one we were using gave us the ability to deploy that SM2 Block IV,” he said. “The SM-2 Block IV could not be used a year ago. We were unable to employ it from our ships in a terminal phase engagement. But now we have this new computer program, 3.6.1, and that was one of our objectives…make sure we could test that computer program and make sure it worked and got engagements in the queue at the same time.”
The 3rd Fleet also conducted some minor tests having to do with the radar beams on the SM-2 Block IV, Dunn added.
“Ballistic missiles come in really really fast. The old SM, by the time the target detection device actually hit the first [radar] beam, it would have flown past the warhead and we wouldn’t have been able to engage it,” he said. “We were actually testing some of those technical things…target detection devices, and things specifically with the SM-2 Block IV.”
Along with 3rd Fleet, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Port Hueneme, Calif., provided all of the Aegis BMD technical work, Dunn said. “They help us mission plan and set up exercises and coordinate it all.”
Additionally, Naval Air Warfare Center Point Mugu, Calif., conducted all the range clearance and fired off the cruise missile and the Lance short-range ballistic missile, Dunn added.
NSWC Corona, Calif., is doing much of the analysis work for 3rd Fleet, and the Air Force even sent assets to watch the test, he said.
The Air Force sent up a couple of F-16s so that they could do a little bit of their testing, Dunn said. “[It] had nothing to do with our objectives. We were not command and control of those aircraft. The Air Force had some tests they needed to do as well.”
The Air Force also brought in a few Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, Dunn added.
“They were sitting off 200 miles away, taking a look at this entire exercise. They got some great video that they brought down and did a whole bunch of data collection as well,” he said.