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The former frigate USS Reuben James (FFG-57) was sunk in January during a test of the Navy’s new anti-surface warfare (ASuW) variant of the Raytheon Standard Missile 6 (SM-6), company officials told USNI News on Monday.

The adaptation of the SM-6 was fired from guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53) and hit James during the Jan. 18 test at the U.S. Pacific Missile Range Facility off the coast of Hawaii, a Raytheon spokeswoman told USNI News.

via news.usni.org

I'd be highly surprised to learn that a single SM-6 actually sank the Reuben James.

And given the great expense of the SM-6 per round, compared to the SM-2 currently in use fleet wide, commanders are going to be very reluctant to shoot at anything but high priority targets.

Still, it is of a piece with the surface navy refocusing on adding lethality to the fleet- an offensive punch, something that hasn't been a focus of the cruiser/destroyer fleet since the Aegis air defense platform first fielded in the early 1980s.

Between SM-6, improvements to the Tomahawk giving it an ASuW capability, and hopefully a VLS capable version of the new LRASM, our Navy will no longer have to rely upon submarines and aircraft for virtually all its anti-shipping capability.