Will the Tories Axe the RAF?

[Modern Elmo]

Move comes as Obama cancels land-based plans

By Philip Ewing and William H. McMichael - Staff writers

Posted : Sunday Sep 20, 2009 12:39:43 EDT

The Navy will begin to maintain a constant presence of at least two or three ballistic-missile defense cruisers and destroyers in the waters around Europe by 2011, the Pentagon announced Sept. 17, to protect the continent from potential Iranian missile attacks.

The standing patrol would sail the North Sea and the Mediterranean to cover Europe from the north and south, and U.S. commanders could surge additional ships to provide extra assistance when needed, said Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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EAST COAST BMD EXPANSION

It’s likely that the ships assigned to the Europe-area patrol mission will come from the East Coast. The Navy and the Missile Defense Agency want to make nine East Coast-based Aegis ships BMD-capable by 2014 — three that had already been slated for the upgrade and six requested in this year’s budget. MDA will recommend that all of them be from the Atlantic Fleet.

Today, 18 ships are equipped with Aegis BMD, and all but two are based in the Pacific.

The three ships already set to get upgrades are the cruisers Vella Gulf and Monterey, based at Naval Station Norfolk, Va., and the destroyer The Sullivans, based at Naval Station Mayport, Fla. The six additional ships haven’t been named.

A second phase of the U.S. missile-defense regime will be in place by 2015, Cartwright said, and will include land-based sensors and SM-3s, but it was not clear whether that would mean an end to the standing [sea-based] Aegis BMD presence in Europe.

Worldwide, the system eventually will integrate the [ US Army's ] Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense [mobile ] missile [system ], or THAAD, slated for operational deployment to Europe this year, ( Where in Europe? ) and the [ larger, non-mobile ] Ground-Based Interceptor missile based at Fort Greely, Alaska, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., Cartwright said.

It also would include construction of a directional X-band radar somewhere in Europe, most likely in the Caucasus region, Cartwright said.

Move comes as Obama cancels land-based plans - Air Force News, news from Iraq - Air Force Times

Somewhere in Caucasus?