As Chinese Ships mass in the Taiwan Strait and as the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) held meetings with their Defense Working Groups on Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) and Maritime Security in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the United States Navy successfully tested a US Army Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptor launched from a Navy VLS launcher off the “desert ship” in White Sands testing range and intercepted an airborne target simulating a cruise missile. This precedent proves a joint common launcher which is deployed on sea and land enabling vast additional capacity and advanced capability of joint common effectors to include the US Army’s best cruise missile interceptor the Patriot-3 MSE.  

The Aegis ship in the desert of White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico is 40 miles north of Fort Bliss El Paso Texas, and the McGregor range, the home of the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command, the largest Missile Defense Command in the World. The “Imperial” Brigade in Fort Bliss is deployed in rotations of its ADA Battalions in locations throughout CENTCOM today. The Imperial Brigade has in addition the 3-43 testing ADA battalion that is developing the Army’s newest IAMD capabilities to include IBCS, LTAMS, IFPIC (HEL and HPM) that all are to be deployed on Guam and integrated to the Navy’s Aegis VLS and land-based transportable TPY-6 radars.  

The Navy’s AEGIS vertical launch systems are deployed today around the world on ninety USN ships (Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers), on two land installations in Deveselu Romania and Redzikowo Air Base Poland, and will be on Guam. This precedent to launch and successfully engage and destroy an air-breathing target is a significant improvement in missile defense capacities and capabilities of the joint-common launch system of VLS. Additionally, it is of note that the US Army is developing land and sea-based container launcher capabilities with the MK-70 PDS. The MK-70 PDS is an advanced vertical launch system (VLS) enabling deployment on non-traditional weapons platforms such as trucks and retrofitted shipping containers. 

The continued deployment, development and integration of a common Navy launch and Aegis system with the Army interceptor inventory in the White Sands test range on the “desert ship” with the modernization of Army IAMD is critical to the defense of CENTCOM, EUCOM, NORTHCOM and INDOPACOM.