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Navy could upgrade all Aegis ships with BMD

The Navy is considering equipping all of its cruisers and destroyers with the capability to shoot down an enemy missile from sea, the director of surface warfare said recently.

By the end of 2009, the Navy plans to have 18 ships — 15 destroyers and three cruisers — fitted with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system, the backbone of the service’s multibillion dollar sea-based missile defense program, built by Lockheed Martin.

Eventually the Navy will equip all its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with missile defense technology, but it remains uncertain if all 22 cruisers will be upgraded as well.

Nonetheless, the Navy is mulling adding Aegis BMD to the remaining 19 cruisers as part of an “extensive modernization program,” said Rear Adm. Victor Guillory, who heads the surface warfare directorate at the Pentagon. He spoke Jan. 15 at the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference in Arlington, Va. The modernization program is currently scheduled to begin in 2012, Guillroy said.

Guillory said his office is looking ways to fund the cruiser upgrade in its long-term budget planning.

The Navy’s existing cruisers and destroyers must be maintained to the end of their 35-year service lives to help the service reach its goal of a 313-ship fleet.

“Modernizing these platforms are the clearest path to achieving a 313 floor,” Guillory said, referencing Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead’s statements that 313 ships is the minimum number the Navy can afford to field in the near future.

In November, the cruiser Lake Erie shot down two test ballistic missiles off Hawaii. The missiles made the 10th and 11th intercepts of 13 targets in 12 scheduled flight tests, according to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.