The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) recently confirmed to Naval News several new details that shed more light on the agency’s sensor network plans as well as new information related to the planned launchers for the defense of Guam.
According to the responses, the agency is no longer pursuing mobile Standard Missile launchers for Guam, as previously floated by the former MDA head Vice Admiral Jon Hill. Instead, the missile launchers will be fixed, most likely being similar to those of the current Aegis Ashore sites.
VADM Jon Hill stated earlier this year that the agency was looking at alternative setups to the current Aegis Ashore sites in Romania and Poland. This is due to how different the topology of Guam is from either of the current Aegis Ashore sites in Europe. Jon Hill also stated that the agency was looking at methods of increasing the survivability of the envisioned network elements against strikes.
Going with mobile radars and launchers would significantly increase the survivability of these elements, as fixed sites can be struck if the defense is saturated and missiles leak through.
The spokesperson also told Naval News that the TPY-6 radars for the defense of Guam would be “transportable” rather than “mobile”. Stating that the difference between the two is that “relocatable requires movement of multiple AN/TPY-6 assemblies/modules while mobile units typically do not.”
According to the responses, the TPY-6 radar would be mounted on a platform, with associated equipment modules to operate the radar being co-located with it. This bears some resemblance with the earliest known depiction of the land-based Lockheed Martin SPY-7 radar, which we were also told the TPY-6 shares the same radar technology with, albeit in a different configuration and for a different role.
Aside from being the Westernmost U.S. territory, the Island of Guam also hosts a large number of military installations that are very crucial to the U.S. and its allies in the Pacific. Some of these installations include the Air Force’s Andersen Air Base, which hosts rotational bomber deployments to the Pacific, the Marine Corps’ Camp Blaz which is still under construction and scheduled to host 5,000 Marines and the Navy’s Naval Base Guam, which hosts nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSN).
Guam’s proximity to both China and North Korea has made defending the island a central piece of discussion within the Indo-Pacific Command in recent years. These discussions have now turned into action as the MDA moves to field a defensive architecture for the island.
The defensive architecture currently being pursued makes use of both the US Navy’s Aegis and the US Army’s IBCS (Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System) and will likely tie them into the MDA’s Command and Control Battle Management Communications (C2BMC).
Due to the nature of the threats that Guam faces, the island will be defended by a variety of weapon systems such as the Patriot, THAAD, SM-3, and SM-6. Other missiles such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9 Sidewinder, when launched from the Army’s Indirect Fire Protection Capability launcher, might also defend the island against cruise missile raids.
