Rear Adm. Brad Hicks, the program's director, told reporters in a conference call after Thursday's test that the Lake Erie fired two interceptors to increase the probability of interception.The Navy does that when a target is close to hitting the surface, he said.Over the next 20 months, the military plans to install terminal-phase missile interception capability on all 18 Navy ships equipped with Aegis ballistic missile defenses, Hicks said.He said the technology would give commanders more options to defend against missiles, particularly if the Patriot missile defense system—a land-based technology designed to shoot down missiles in their final phase of flight—was unavailable."If I don't have a Patriot nearby on a shore station to do a short- range threat, near the defended area, I have nothing," Hicks said. "The flexibility of having a ship to complement the Patriot, or to be there when it can't be, is very high on a warfighter priority."In the last Aegis missile defense test, in November, the Lake Erie fired two interceptors to destroy two ballistic missile targets simultaneously in space.That marked the first time the U.S. missile defense system shot down two ballistic missiles at once in space.In December, a Japanese naval vessel equipped with the Aegis ballistic missile defense system shot down a missile target off Hawaii. Japan became the first U.S. ally to intercept a missile from a ship at sea in that test.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9145V1GE&show_article=1&catnum=0
As in the days of Noah...