XBradTC

The whole point of the Aegis radar/weapons control system was to give the Navy improved defenses against cruise missile attacks. Originally intended for the open stretches of the North Atlantic, in recent years, the system has been improved to counter low flying threats in littoral waters, which is just what Mason and Ponce faced the other day.

USNI News reports:

The crew of a guided-missile destroyer fired three missiles to defend themselves and another ship after being attacked on Sunday in the Red Sea by two presumed cruise missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthi-forces, USNI News has learned.

During the attack against USS Mason (DDG-87), the ship’s crew fired the missiles to defend the guided-missile destroyer and nearby USS Ponce (AFSB(I)-15) from two suspected cruise missiles fired from the Yemini shore, two defense officials told USNI News.

Mason launched two Standard Missile-2s (SM-2s) and a single Enhanced Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) to intercept the two missiles that were launched about 7 P.M. local time. In addition to the missiles, the ship used its Nulka anti-ship missile decoy, the sources confirmed. Mason was operating in international waters north of the strait of Bab el-Mandeb at the time of the attack.

According to a defense official on Monday, Mason “employed onboard defensive measures” against the first suspected cruise missile, “although it is unclear whether this led to the missile striking the water or whether it would have struck the water anyway.” The official did not specify that the defensive measure was a missile fired from the ship.

Read the whole thing. As noted elsewhere in the article, it isn’t known yet if any of the three missiles actually hit anything.

Of note, the Mason also deployed her Nulka, which is an interesting bit of kit. While the destroyer obviously has its radar to detect incoming missiles, very often the first indication of an inbound low flying cruise missile is the emissions from either its seeker head, or even its radar altimeter. The SLQ-32 ECM system on board the destroyer would then be used to cue the SPY-1 radar to search for the threat.  The SLQ-32 also cues the ships countermeasures, which can include chaff rockets and infrared flares, or, in this case, Nulka.

The Mk 53 Nulka is a rocket that the ship fires, and the rocket then hovers while using active jamming techniques to present the seeker with a false target.