Aegis ("Agis" other Greek) - the mythical shield of Athena and Zeus, according to legend, made from the skin of the magic goat Amalthea. In the center of the shield is fixed the head of Medusa the Gorgon, turning a person into stone with her gaze. Versatile weapon for attack and defense helped Zeus in the battle against the titans.
In 1983, a new warship entered the ocean. A huge banner "Stand by admiral Gorshkov:" Aegis "- at sea!" (Watch out for Admiral Gorshkov! Aegis at sea!). This is how the missile cruiser USS Ticonderoga (CG-47) began its service with a luscious star-striped pathos.
The Taikonderoga became the first ship in the world * to be equipped with the Aegis (Aegis) combat information and control system. BIUS "Aegis" provides simultaneous tracking of hundreds of surface, ground, underwater and air targets, their selection and automatic guidance of the ship's weapons to the most dangerous objects. Official sources have always emphasized that Aegis is taking the air defense of US Navy ships to a new level: from now on, no anti-ship missile, even with a massive launch, will be able to break through the super-technological "shield" of the Tykonderog cruiser.
Currently BIUS "Aegis" is installed on 107 ships of the Navy of five countries of the world. Over the 30 years of its existence, the combat control system has overgrown with so many horror stories and legends that even Ancient Greek mythology will envy it. As befits a real hero, "Aegis" repeated "The 12 labors of Hercules."
The first feat. Aegis wins the Airbus
An arrow of fire swept across the sky, and Air Iran Flight 655 disappeared from the radar screens. The US Navy's missile cruiser Vincennes successfully repelled an air attack … George W. Bush, then Vice President, nobly declared: “I will never apologize for America. It doesn't matter what the facts are”(“I will never apologize for the United States of America, I don’t care what the facts are”).
Tanker war, Gulf of Hormuz. In the early morning of July 3, 1988, the missile cruiser USS Vincennes (CG-49), protecting the Danish tanker Karoma Maersk, engaged eight boats of the Iranian Navy. In pursuit of boats, American sailors violated the border of Iranian territorial waters, and, by a tragic accident, at that moment an unidentified air target appeared on the cruiser's radar.
Air Iran's Airbus A-300 operated that morning on a regular flight from Bandar Abbas to Dubai. The simplest route: climb 4000 meters - flight straight ahead - landing, travel time - 28 minutes. Later, the deciphering of the found "black boxes" showed that the pilots had heard warnings from the American cruiser, but did not at all consider themselves an "unidentified aircraft." Flight 655 went to meet its death, at that moment there were 290 people on board.
The passenger airliner traveling at low altitude was identified as an Iranian F-14 fighter. A year ago, under similar circumstances, the Iraqi Air Force Mirage shot the American frigate Stark, then 37 sailors were killed. The commander of the cruiser "Vincennes" knew that they had violated the border of another state's terrorist forces, so an attack by an Iranian plane seemed the most logical consequence. It was necessary to make an urgent decision. At 10:54 local time, two Standard-2 anti-aircraft missiles were fed to the guide beams of the Mk26 launcher …
After the tragedy, the leading Pentagon expert David Parnas lamented to the press that "our very best computers cannot distinguish an airbus from a fighter jet at close range."
“We were told that the Aegis system is the most magnificent in the world and that this simply cannot happen!” Rep. Patricia Shrouder said indignantly.
The ending of this dirty story was unusual. An article appeared in the New Republic (Washington) magazine with the following content: “We are obliged to apologize to the Soviet Union for our cheap reaction in 1983 to the South Korean Boeing-747 shot down over the Sea of Okhotsk. One can argue endlessly about the similarities and differences between the two incidents. Our victims were in the air over the war zone. Their victims were in the air over Soviet territory. (What if a mysterious plane appeared in the skies of California?) Now it is becoming more and more obvious: our reaction to the downed South Korean plane is part of cynical propaganda and the result of technological arrogance: they say this could never happen to us."
The second feat. The Aegis sleeps at the post
Ferry, ferry. The cannons are firing in the pitch darkness. This battleship Missouri, on the winter night of February 24, 1991, smashes the front lines of the Iraqi army, sending round after round from its monstrous 406 mm guns. The Iraqis do not remain in debt - two anti-ship missiles "Haiin-2" (Chinese copy of the Soviet anti-ship missile P-15 "Termit" with an increased flight range) fly from the coast to the battleship
Aegis, your time has come! Aegis, HELP! But the Aegis was inactive, dumbly blinking its lights and displays. None of the US Navy's missile cruisers responded to the threat. The situation was saved by Her Majesty's ship "Gloucester" - from an extremely small distance the British destroyer cut down one "Haiyin" with the help of the "Sea Dart" air defense system - the wreckage of an Iraqi missile crashed into the water 600 meters from the side of the "Missouri" (the first case of a successful interception in combat conditions anti-ship missiles using air defense systems). Realizing that it no longer makes sense to rely on their unlucky escort, the battleship crew began to shoot off the dipole reflectors - with their help the second missile was diverted to the side (according to another version, the Haiin-2 anti-ship missile system fell into the water itself).
Of course, the two anti-ship missiles did not pose a serious threat to the thick-skinned battleship - armor plates with a thickness of 30 centimeters reliably covered the crew and equipment. But the very fact that the work of the Aegis was carried out by an old destroyer using an anti-aircraft missile system developed in the mid-60s suggests that the ultra-modern Aegis simply failed the mission. American sailors do not comment on this circumstance in any way, although a number of experts are of the opinion that the Aegis cruisers operated in a different square, therefore they could not find targets - the Iraqi anti-ship missiles flew below their radio horizon. And the "Gloucester" was directly in the escort of the battleship "Missouri", so she promptly came to the rescue.
Here it would be possible to finish the story about the adventures of the US Navy in the Persian Gulf, but at the time of the missile attack, another funny incident happened in the battle group of the battleship Missouri - the Falanx anti-aircraft defense system installed on the American frigate Jarrett received one of the dipoles for anti-ship missiles and automatically opened fire to kill. Simply put, the frigate launched a friendly fire, firing at the battleship Missouri with a six-barreled cannon. And "Aegis", of course, has nothing to do with it, chocolate is not to blame for anything.
The third feat. Aegis flies into space
Of course, it is not the BIUS itself that flies, but the RIM-161 "Standard-3" anti-aircraft missile under the close control of the "Aegis". In short: the idea of SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) has not disappeared anywhere - America still dreams of a "missile shield". In the early 2000s, a four-stage anti-aircraft missile "Standard-3" was developed to destroy the warheads of ballistic missiles and space satellites in low earth orbit. It was they who became the bone of contention over the deployment of the American missile defense system in Eastern Europe (sea-based Standard-3 - mobile and elusive Aegis systems - poses a much greater danger, but the discussion of this problem is of no interest to politicians).
On February 21, 2008, a rocket and satellite extravaganza took place over the Pacific Ocean - a Standard-3 rocket launched from the Aegis cruiser Lake Erie overtook its target at an altitude of 247 kilometers. The American reconnaissance satellite USA-193 was moving at this moment at a speed of 27 thousand km / h.
To break is not to build. Alas, in our case the saying is not true. Disabling a spacecraft is no easier than building it and launching it into orbit. Shooting down a satellite with a rocket is like hitting a bullet with a bullet. And it succeeded!
But there is one caveat. The Aegis accomplished its feat by firing at a target with a previously known trajectory - the Americans had enough time (hours, days?) To determine the parameters of the faulty satellite's orbit, move the ship to the desired point in the World Ocean, and at the right time press the button “Start". Therefore, intercepting a space satellite has little to do with missile defense. But, as the Chinese proverb says: the longest and most difficult path begins with the first step. And this step has already been taken - American specialists have managed to create an extremely mobile, cheap and effective missile system, whose energy performance allows them to fire at targets in low Earth orbit. Already at the moment, the US Navy is capable of "flipping" the entire orbital grouping of a "potential enemy", and the number of Russian satellites in orbit is relatively small compared to the stocks of Standard-3 interceptor missiles.
The fourth feat. Aegis comes ashore
And it climbs right into the heart of Europe - into the fabulous Czech Republic, the country of majestic castles and excellent foamy drink. No, the Aegis did not come crawling for beer: Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary expressed their readiness to deploy elements of the American missile defense system on their territory. By 2015, another operational facility is expected to appear in Romania.
As we have already mentioned, the passion for missile defense is not worth the candle. If interceptor missiles are targeted against Russia, then it turns out that they are useless. The flight path of Russian ICBMs lies across the North Pole - in this case, the Standard-3 interceptors from the Czech Republic will have to shoot in pursuit, which does not give them a single chance of success. "Aegis" and "Standard-3" need to be deployed in Svalbard or Greenland - then they turn into a really workable "shield". And why does no one pay attention to the fact that 22 ships of the US Navy are equipped with already operating anti-missiles? This is an alarming sign that the United States is gaining control of near-Earth space.
Perhaps we will omit the story about the rest of the exploits of "Aegis" - they are quite ordinary, and you should not bore the reader with a monotonous listing of facts and quite presumed conclusions. "Aegis" was created as a defensive air defense system, and indeed - the complex of weapons for cruisers of the "Taikonderog" type of the first series consisted only of anti-aircraft missiles and anti-submarine missile-torpedoes. Two quadruple launchers of Harpoon anti-ship missiles were used for decorative purposes - according to the American doctrine of naval combat, carrier-based aircraft had priority in the fight against surface targets.
But everything changed with the advent of the vertical launcher Mark-41 - with its help, the Aegis ships turned into truly formidable combat units. UVP Mark-41 and the new ammunition were integrated into the Aegis system without any difficulty; indeed, it does not take much effort to "upload" the coordinates of the launch site and destination, as well as the underlying relief map into the memory of the Tomahawk cruise missile on the flight route. Such actions do not require complex calculations and the development of instant decisions, it is not surprising that Aegis ships were repeatedly involved in strikes against ground targets, and successfully carried out such combat missions - fifty Tomahawks in the shock version of the Orly Burke destroyer - that's just enough to accomplish a dozen "feats" for the glory of democratic values.
Jokes aside, but only a very naive person can claim that Aegis is harmless and, as a combat system, good for nothing. Any system is characterized not by an error, but by a reaction to an error - after the first "exploits" of the Aegis, Lokheed-Martin did a lot of work on the errors - the interface of the system was changed, the AN / SPY-1 radar and the computer of the command center are constantly being modernized, the ships received a new one. assortment of weapons: the Tomahawk cruise missile, ASROC-VL anti-submarine ammunition, the RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missle anti-ship missile interceptor in the near zone, the Standard-6 active homing anti-aircraft missile and, of course, the Standard-3 anti-satellite missile ". And most importantly - the training of the crew, without a person any equipment is just a pile of scrap metal.
Lokheed Martin cites the following figures assessing the results of thirty years of operation of the Aegis system: to date, 107 Aegis ships have spent a total of 1250 years on military campaigns around the world, during test and combat launches from ships more than 3800 missiles of various types have been fired. It is naive to believe that the Americans have not learned anything during this time.
Still, the evidence suggests that the US Navy is not going to rely entirely on the complex and unreliable Aegis. The main efforts in the fight against low-flying anti-ship missiles are focused not on their direct interception, but on counteracting anti-ship missiles carriers - ships, aircraft and submarines, in order to prevent them from entering the attack range. And "Aegis" is just the last frontier.
* The first ship on which the Aegis system was installed was the Norton Sound floating laboratory.
