page_title: USS Benfold
section_title: Service
hierarchical_section_title: USS Benfold / Service
caption_attribution_description: English: PACIFIC OCEAN (March 26, 2009) The San Diego-based guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG 65) fires a missile Thursday, March 26, 2009 during training exercise Stellar Daggers in the Pacific Ocean. Benfold engaged multiple targets with Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) Block IIIA and modified SM-2 BLK IV missiles. The overall objective of Stellar Daggers was to test the Aegis system's sea-based ability to simultaneously detect, track, engage and destroy multiple incoming air and ballistic missile threats during terminal or final phase of flight. The Benfold's Aegis Weapons System successfully detected and intercepted a cruise missile target with a SM-2 BLK IIIA, while simultaneously detecting and intercepting an incoming SRBM target with a modified SM-2 BLK IV. This is the first time the fleet has successfully tested the Aegis system's ability to intercept both an SRBM in terminal phase and a low-altitude cruise missile target at the same time. (U.S. Navy photo/Released)
context_page_description: USS Benfold is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer in the United States Navy.
  Benfold is a multi-mission platform capable of AAW with the powerful AEGIS combat systems suite and anti-aircraft missiles, ASW, with towed sonar array, anti-submarine rockets, ASUW with a Harpoon missile launcher, and strategic land strike using Tomahawk missiles. Benfold was one of the first ships fitted with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System and during the 2010 Stellar Daggers exercise was the first ship to simultaneously engage a ballistic missile and a cruise missile.
  Former Benfold commanding officers include ADM Mark Ferguson, ADM Michael Gilday, VADM Thomas H. Copeman III, and author D. Michael Abrashoff.
context_section_description: Built by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation in Pascagoula, Mississippi, Benfold is the 15th of 76 planned Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers. Named for posthumous Korean War United States Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipient  Hospital Corpsman Third Class Edward Clyde Benfold, she joined the U.S. Pacific Fleet for service on 30 March 1996.
  Equipped with the AEGIS air-defense system and the Mark-41 Vertical Launch System for multiple types of guided missiles, Benfold is capable of defensive and offensive operations against warplanes, anti-ship missiles, surface ships, submarines, and shore targets. In addition to her missiles, she carries one 5-inch rapid-fire naval gun for action against surface ships and for shore bombardment. She also carries anti-submarine torpedoes, and two Phalanx anti-missile guns. She has a flight deck for MH-60R/S Seahawk Helicopters and is capable of refueling and re-arming these helicopters, but she does not have a hangar for storing and maintaining helicopters.
caption: USS Benfold firing an SM-3 missile.
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