page_title: Anti-aircraft warfare
section_title: Layered air defence
hierarchical_section_title: Anti-aircraft warfare / Force structures / Navy / Layered air defence
caption_attribution_description: A U.S. Navy RIM-67 Standard SM-2ER surface-to-air missile (left), just launched from the Vertical Launching System (VLS), intercepts a Ryan BQM-34A Firebee target drone during VLS testing at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico (USA), in 1980.
context_page_description: Anti-aircraft warfare or counter-air defence is defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action". It includes surface based, subsurface, and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements, and passive measures. It may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries the main effort has tended to be homeland defence. NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare. Missile defence is an extension of air defence, as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight.
  In some countries, such as Britain and Germany during the Second World War, the Soviet Union, and modern NATO and the United States, ground-based air defence and air defence aircraft have been under integrated command and control. However, while overall air defence may be for homeland defence, forces in the field, wherever they are, invariably deploy their own air defence capability if there is an air threat.
context_section_description: Air defence in naval tactics, especially within a carrier group, is often built around a system of concentric layers with the aircraft carrier at the centre. The outer layer will usually be provided by the carrier's aircraft, specifically its AEW&C aircraft combined with the CAP. If an attacker is able to penetrate this layer, then the next layers would come from the surface-to-air missiles carried by the carrier's escorts; the area-defence missiles, such as the RIM-67 Standard, with a range of up to 100 nmi, and the point-defence missiles, like the RIM-162 ESSM, with a range of up to 30 nmi. Finally, virtually every modern warship will be fitted with small-calibre guns, including a CIWS, which is usually a radar-controlled Gatling gun of between 20mm and 30mm calibre capable of firing several thousand rounds per minute.
caption: A RIM-67 surface to air missile intercepts a Firebee drone at White Sands, 1980.
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