The video offers an impressive look at the Navy’s Aegis-equipped warships’ ability to quickly engage supersonic sea-skimming cruise missiles. The U.S. Navy has released footage recorded during an exercise where SM-2 surface-to-air missiles were used to intercept a GQM-163 Coyote supersonic sea-skimming target. The GQM-163 rapidly accelerates right off its launch stand and rips across the screen at impressive velocity as it heads out for its mock attack on the nearby surface combatants.
Information released along with the video, which was recorded by an infrared camera, states that the overall exercise took place in the Atlantic Ocean right off NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on March 27. The GQM-163 used is designed by Northrop Grumman and serves primarily as a non-recoverable sea-skimming supersonic target that can simulate anti-ship cruise missiles as well as some ballistic missile-like threat.
