American Military News by William Cole 10/27/2019
A missile defense battle of wills is being waged in Congress over testing of a new interceptor missile that is to be deployed on Navy destroyers and could provide improved defense of Hawaii and the West Coast from North Korean threats.
The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act with language canceling the much-awaited first test of the new SM-3 Block IIA missile against an intercontinental range ballistic missile in 2020, and replaced it with a retest against an intermediate-range target.
The Block IIA missile, built by Raytheon, is faster and has more range compared with the current SM-3 Block IB, which is deployed on Navy ships positioned in places like Guam and Japan to guard against short- to intermediate-range North Korean missiles.
Whatever test is conducted in 2020 likely will occur at the Pacific Missile Range Facility off Kauai.
The Trump administration in a July memo said it “strongly objects†to the proposed House change as another flight test against the shorter-range target would “add little technical value†given that the Missile Defense Agency successfully tested an SM-3 Block IIA missile against a intermediate-range missile off Kauai in December.
More:
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2019/10/key-icbm-shoot-down-test-in-limbo/
