The US Navy wants a lot more of a missile that just recently scored its first kill to counter Pacific threats like China [Video]

The US Navy will need a lot more of its SM-3 missile, an interceptor that only recently scored its first-ever kill, to counter Pacific threats like China, the sea service’s top civilian official said on Wednesday.

Last month, American warships operating in the eastern Mediterranean Sea fired the Standard Missile 3, or SM-3, to engage Iranian ballistic missiles that Tehran fired as part of a massive and unprecedented attack on Israel. The incident marked the first time that this interceptor was used in combat.

These “SM-3s will be needed in greater numbers in the future,” Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday during a budget hearing for the coming fiscal year.

“Given the operations that took place in defense of Israel here recently, where some were fired, and very effectively so, I think given the future threat and our deterrence mission in the Indo-Pacific, we are going to need more SM-3s …