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[Global Times Special Correspondent Wei Qi] After being selected by the U.S. Army to equip the "Typhon" system for striking ground targets and being carried by the U.S. Navy F/A-18E/F fighter jets as long-range air-to-air missiles, the "Standard-6"Anti-aircraft missilesAccording to the U.S. Defense News website, in a recent test, the U.S. ArmyradarThe fire control system guided the US Navy to launch a simulated interception of the "Standard-6" missile. Chinese military experts said that this reflects that the United States is accelerating the construction of integrated land, sea and air defense, and will focus on deploying it in the Asia-Pacific region in the future.

File footage of the U.S. Navy test-firing the Standard-6.

Army radar guided naval missiles

According to Defense News and other foreign media reports, Raytheon announced in a statement that during the recent Valiant Shield 24 exercise in the Indo-Pacific region, the U.S. Navy's Standard-6 missile intercepted a target in a test under the guidance of the U.S. Army's new missile defense radar and command and control system. According to reports, during the test, the simulator of the Army's Low-Layer Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS) radar provided threat tracking data, and the Army's Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) developed by Northrop Grumman controlled the missile through the Standard-6 engagement control software.

The report said that this successful test is the latest reflection of the Pentagon's desire to see the two services operate seamlessly in combat. IBCS is the brain of the U.S. Army's air and missile defense architecture. After comprehensive analysis of data, it transmits launch commands and guides the "Standard-6" to a successful intercept. Raytheon said that this test proved that the U.S. Navy missile can play a role in the Army's integrated air and missile defense architecture.

According to Chinese military expert Zhang Xuefeng, the LTAMDS radar is the main fire control radar in the U.S. Army's future integrated air defense and anti-missile system, and is planned to replace the AN/MQP-65 radar in the Patriot air defense system. The radar has a large main array surface and two smaller array surfaces for detecting blind spots that the main array surface cannot cover, thereby achieving 360-degree coverage. In tests conducted in 2023, the U.S. Army has verified the compatibility of the LTAMDS radar and the Patriot-3 air defense missile. In March of this year, the radar also conducted its fourth live-fire demonstration. In that test, a cruise missile target was launched, and the LTAMDS acquired and tracked the target, passing the tracking data to IBCS, and then the LTAMDS guided the Patriot-3 segmented enhanced (MSE) missile to intercept.

The so-called "A shoots, B guides" is realized

According to reports, the test launch was of the Navy-type "Standard-6" air defense missile, which was guided by the US Army's system, achieving the so-called "A launches, B guides", or "ship launches, land guides". This move marks that the US Navy and Army are accelerating the integration of air defense systems and achieving mutual integration and interoperability of air defense systems.

In addition to the US Navy's "Standard-6" to achieve ship-to-land missile, in the future, the US Army may also be equipped with the "Standard-6" air defense missile to further expand its air defense range. At present, the US Army's large-scale air defense and anti-missile system is mainly the "Patriot-3" air defense and anti-missile system, which is compatible with the "Patriot-2" and "Patriot-3" air defense missiles.

Since LTAMDS is the radar of the next generation "Patriot" system of the US Army, which is used to replace AN/MPQ-65A, its compatibility with the "Standard-6" system means that the "Patriot" air defense and anti-missile system of the United States can introduce the "Standard-6" missile in the future. An air defense missile system that can launch a variety of different missiles has become a common feature of large air defense systems, including China, the United States, and Russia.

Defense News reported that efforts to combine the U.S. Navy's ground-based long-range air defense missiles with the Army's missile defense system can further build a layered missile defense architecture. The U.S. Army also uses the Standard-6 and Raytheon-made Tomahawk cruise missiles, coupled with vertical launch systems, for its medium-range capability (MRC) system.

Possibly deployed in Guam

The U.S. military is improving its integrated air and missile defense capabilities, and an important goal is to strengthen the air defense capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region. Defense News said that the testing of these systems is crucial to ensure that the air and missile defense systems planned in Guam can work. The Army's Medium Range Capability (MRC) system launchers, LTAMDS and IBCS will form part of the architecture together with the Aegis weapon system equipped with Standard-3 and Standard-6 missiles.

According to the U.S. Defense News, in March 2023, the director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency stated that the first batch of defense systems aimed at responding to complex missile threats against Guam will include radars, launchers, interceptors and command and control systems, which will be deployed on Guam in 2024. According to U.S. military budget documents, this includes three LTAMDS radars and the Patriot air defense and anti-missile system, as well as the launcher of the Typhon missile system and the launcher of the Army's "Indirect Fire Protection Capability", of which the "Indirect Fire Protection Capability" system is actually a medium- and short-range air defense system. The U.S. Army plans to purchase a total of five LTAMDS radars in 2024, two of which will be used for testing. In addition, according to the plan, the 2024 budget will also be used to install four "high-end, solid-state, mobile AN/TPY-6 radars" on Guam. In the future, "Hypersonic"Glide phase interceptor" is used to intercept hypersonic missiles.

Zhang Xuefeng believes that in the future, if the "Standard-6" is deployed in Guam as a land-based air defense missile, it will increase the coverage of large air targets by the US military. At the same time, the "Standard-6" missile launched by the Aegis ship can also be guided by the LTAMDS radar in Guam, further increasing its flexibility in air defense operations. In addition, the US Navy has also tested the use of F-35 fighters to guide the "Standard-6" launched at sea, so that the "Aegis" system has over-the-horizon strike capability and expands its strike range against ultra-low-altitude sea-skimming cruise missiles. However, Zhang Xuefeng also believes that if the US Army is equipped with the "Standard-6" air defense system, it will only make the range of its ground air defense system reach the same level as the long-range air defense systems of other major countries, which can be regarded as filling the gap. A shoots B guides, which is not the "unique skill" of the US Army. The US Army, which did not pay much attention to long-range ground air defense in the past, "borrowed" naval missile air defense, which also reflects the increasing air defense pressure they face.