East Coast DDG deploys with BMD capability

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Bringing out the big guns
Ramage is LantFleet’s 1st BMD-capable ship


East Coast DDG deploys with BMD capability
By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Sep 2, 2008 7:21:50 EDT

NORFOLK, Va. — The destroyer Ramage left the pier Friday with a big, new arrow in its quiver. Departing as part of the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group, the 14-year-old warship was the first Atlantic-based Arleigh Burke to deploy ready for ballistic missile defense.

“She is loaded,” said Rear Adm. Alan Hicks, program director for Aegis ballistic missile defense, in a teleconference with reporters. “She can search and track for cueing; she can do engagements of exoatmospheric threats; and she can defend herself against air threats. That is our definition of fully mission-capable.”

Standing on the forecastle of Ramage prior to deployment, Cmdr. Peter Galluch said his 260 crew members are up for the added mission set. They’ve been training for a year for the seven-month deployment and six months of that time — “a long, intense period” — for the BMD mission.

By upgrading its Aegis radar system and training the crews to intercept airborne ballistic missiles, the Navy has been bolstering the usefulness of its older Flight I/II Burke-class destroyers, as well as some of its Ticonderoga-class cruisers.

Galluch compared the upgrade to going from using a shotgun to a high-powered rifle with a really good scope: You are still shooting at a target.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/09/navy_ramage_090208w/%2e