Raytheon’s newest ship-defense missile hit a surface target and set a distance engagement record in recent test flights, Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems said Monday.
In one recent test flight off Hawaii, the company said, a Standard Missile-6 fired by the Navy guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones hit and sank a decommissioned Navy destroyer.
In another, more complex test, the USS John Paul Jones successfully hit five targets in four separate mission scenarios, while setting a record for the longest-range test of its kind.
The single test demonstrated the Navy’s concept of “distributed lethality,” or employing ships in dispersed formations to increase surface firepower options, the company said.
The USS John Paul Jones fired one SM-6 during the test, while a similar guided-missile destroyer was on hand to assist, said Raytheon, Southern Arizona’s biggest private employer.
The other, multishot test proved the tactical capability of SM-6 by demonstrating both its maximum down-range effectiveness and maximum, cross-range intercepts in “over-the-horizon” missions using targeting data from sources apart from the firing ship, the company said. Further details about the test were not available.
While the Navy has not released the effective range of the SM-6 or the engagement distance achieved in the recent test, previous long-range versions of the Standard Missile have been rated at a range of more than 200 miles. The company said the recent test beat a previous, also undisclosed record-long engagement during a test flight in June 2014.
Raytheon says it has delivered more than 250 SM-6 missiles, which were deployed for the first time in 2013.
The Navy recently awarded Raytheon a $270 million contact for fiscal year 2016 SM-6 production.
While much of the SM-6 development and component work takes place in Tucson, the missile’s final assembly takes place at Raytheon’s plant at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.
