The U.S. Navy just deployed its new ship-killer missile to China’s backyard

It can travel more than 100 nautical miles, passively detect an enemy through imaging stored in its computer brain, and can kill a target so precisely that an operator can tell it to aim for a specific point on the ship – the engine room or the bridge, for example. And it’s heading to China’s stomping grounds.

The littoral combat ship Gabrielle Giffords deployed Tuesday from San Diego packing the U.S. Navy’s new Naval Strike Missile, transforming the LCS from an under-gunned concept-ship gone awry to a legitimate threat to Chinese warships at significant ranges.