US Army & Navy Connect Next-Gen LTAMDS Radar With SM-6 Interceptor Missile

By Kris Osborn, President, Warrior

The US Army & Navy have teamed up to connect a cutting-edge 360-degree threat detection radar with a US Navy SM-6 interceptor missile, a development enabling a more complete kill chain from target detection, verification and destruction. 

The integration is quite significant as it massively accelerates the speed with which incoming enemy missile, artillery and even drone threats can be tracked and intercepted or simply blown out of the sky. The effort involves successful initiatives to link Raytheon’s advanced Ghost Eye Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor fire control to the launch of an SM-6 interceptor missile engineered to destroy incoming threats.  This requires the engineering of specific interfaces, technical alignments and software adjustments to ensure otherwise separate systems can connect with one another.  This connection was successfully demonstrated recently in an Joint military exercise known as Valiant Shield 24.  A LTAMDS radar was networked with the Army’s Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) to launch an SM-6 at a specified target. 

“Using track data from Army LTAMDS simulators and operational SM-6 engagement control software interfaced with IBCS, the test demonstrated the successful integration of these existing, respective Army and Navy program capabilities,” a Raytheon essay stated. 

LTAMDS – 360 Degree Radar

LTAMDS has been in development for many years as a specific technological solution intended to defend against a new generation of threats the Army has been anticipating for many years now. 

Advanced countermeasures, maneuverable re-entry vehicles, electronic attack jamming and long-range, low-observable cruise missiles are all fast-evolving threats to the U.S. Army identified in a published report in 2019 called “Army Air & Missile Defense 2028 Vision.”

This threat equation, which has only become more significant and advanced in the 5-to-6 years since the Vision statement was published, could be seen as the fundamental inspiration for Army efforts to engineer a new generation of highly-sensitive, long-range, paradigm-changing ground radar systems.