AEGIS System

The Aegis system is by many regarded as one of the most capable AAW weapon systems in the world. The concept for this system was developed in the mid 1960's as a replacement for the failed Typhon weapon system. It was initiated under the program name ASMS, Advanced Surface Missile System. This page will tell something about it's development and the resulting impact on the ships it is fitted on.

How it started

The ASMS Assesment group was set up in Januari 1965, with people from different boards of the navy and several contractors who together would establish a baseline ASMS system configuration so the different parts could be chosen or developed. The goal for this system was to create a system for the next generation of air defence ships which would be futureproof and could replace the now aging 3T (Tartar, Terrier, Talos) series. Subgroups were formed to focus on different design problems, such as topside design, operation requirements, the missile, etc.

While the usual approach to operations analysis was to seek a maximum performance against the whole threat spectrum with equal weights for each threat, the operations analysis subgroup here instead used the criterion of minimum probability of failure against any reasonable threat. The reasoning was that the potential enemy would exploit any weakness if possible, so the system would be most stressed on it's weakest points. This method proved to be very succesful in making system decisions.

System elements and their development

From the previous Typhon program, a few things were clear from the beginning. ASMS would use missile guided from the ship with terminal homing. The terminal homing would be semi-active as the technology could not support active homing while passive homing was considered to be unsuitable. Also from Typhon, only planar array phased array radars were considered.

One important choice that had to be made, was the operating frequency. The many aspects of a missile guidance system had different influences on this choice and would have to be weighed carefully.

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ASMS

the early Aegis system

Mk 20 deckhouse

Sources:

doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-3584.1988.tb01491.x