Pacific Dragon 22: USS Fitzgerald deploys SM-3
After the large-scale exercise RIMPAC22 with 28 participating nations, almost 40 ships, 30 unmanned systems, 170 aircraft and 9 army contingents, there are now other naval manoeuvres in and around Hawaii that are worth mentioning: Pacific Dragon 22 (PD22) also takes place every two years, albeit with a different focus. This year, at the beginning of August, a short-range ballistic missile was intercepted by a sea-based SM-3 Block IA Standard Missile in "live fire" for the first time by a group of American, Australian, Canadian and South Korean destroyers and the US Missile Defence Agency. The interceptor missile was launched from the USS Fitzgerald, which hit the headlines almost exactly five years ago (June 2017) because...
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