The Danish Ministry of Defence has selected the SAMP/T NG air defence system to strengthen national air defence and ensure interoperability with European and NATO forces, with Thales playing a key role as system integrator alongside MBDA, the company stated.
SAMP/T NG is a mobile ground-to-air system designed to intercept and destroy medium-range ballistic missiles, aircraft and drones.
Each Danish system will use Thales’s Ground Fire radar, produced in series since early 2025, which the company described as offering “revolutionary performance” with a range of up to 400 km, 360° panoramic coverage, and 90° elevation.
According to Thales, the radar uses fully digital active electronically scanned array (AESA) technology to detect, track and classify multiple targets in complex environments, including mountainous terrain and congested airspace. It can detect drones and ballistic missiles, while its compact ISO-container design enables high mobility with short installation and dismantling times.
The system is designed to integrate with the Aster family of missiles, for which Thales provides the seeker, and will include Thales’s Command and Control Engagement Module New Generation, developed in cooperation with MBDA. Thales noted that the open architecture of SAMP/T NG allows interoperability with other European systems, enhancing collective defence capabilities.
Hervé Dammann, Executive Vice-President for Land and Air Systems at Thales, said in the press release: “Thales is honoured by the choice made by the Danish authorities. With Eurosam and MBDA, we sincerely thank our client for their trust. The Danish armed forces will benefit from a state-of-the-art system to guarantee the protection of their airspace and contribute to the defence of European countries and NATO.”
The SAMP/T NG programme is managed by OCCAR, with Eurosam, a joint venture between Thales and MBDA, acting as lead contractor. Thales highlighted that the Ground Fire radar maximises the performance of the new generation Aster 30 missile and underpins European strategic autonomy in medium-range air and missile defence.
Glad to see that the SAMP/T NG is being procured, rather than the old SAMP/T. The original Arabel radar system has long been identified as a limiting factor (being out-ranged by the missiles the system uses) for both AAW and BMD, as noted in Ukraine, where the system reportedly struggled against ballistic targets.
I’d remind those who think this is a perfect option for the BA/RAF that each system costs roughly $500 million (4-6 launchers, 1 radar, 1 C2 module), is still limited in its range and capability and that the production rate for the Aster-30 and its variants remains low.
I was about to ask the cost of such a system, I see you gave that already, thanks.
Yeah, one of the factors that led to the Danish decision being a surprise for many is that Patriot would have offered a cheaper, better system with greater rates of missile production given the German lines.
On the other hand, buying from the nations threatening to annex your territory is a little backwards.
$500m x 4 to defend the Deterrent, Portsmouth, Devonport and those scarce P-8 doesn’t seem too high an investment considering they tell us we are on a war footing.
Defend them from what? There are better options for protecting those sites against submarine-launched cruise missiles, and any ballistic missile threat to the UK from the Russian Federation would be beyond the capability of the SAMP/T NG to actually engage. SAMP/T isn’t doing shit if something like an Oreshnik is launched against the UK.
Submarine-launched ballistic missiles at a push, but IINM that’s only the Tskirkon, at which point the SAMP/T isn’t going to be doing much to help you, especially against an attack at scale. It’s radar is good, but it just can’t provide the capability or power that a naval system can. You’d be better off placing a destroyer, either a Type 45 or an Arleigh Burke in the Channel or outside Faslane.
Basically, it’s a very expensive and limited fig leaf. You’d be better off (IMO) investing in more mobile and capable naval units – for example, getting the USN or KM to place those sites under their SM-3 protection in the short term whilst investing in procuring at least eight new FADS destroyers in the long term.
Additionally, a better protection could also be investing in our own offensive capabilities, so that Russia knows that should they for example strike Faslane, we could then strike Murmansk back. Make the conventional consequences of hitting our naval bases too unpalatable for them to consider that move.
ABM defence is an interesting question for the UK.. it’s not at risk from short range ballistic missiles.. so a system like this would be a bit irrelevant for the mainland UK.
But Russia has shown the capability to fire conventional intermediate range ballistic missiles. So the question is does the UK look for a defence against these ?
The problem is defending against multiple re entry vehicles is a bit of a zero sum game.. say like the Russian IRMB it’s got 4 warheads you need at least four profoundly expensive missiles to defeat one profoundly expensive missile..
So are you better to build resilience against taking the limited number of hits from those profoundly expensive ballistic missiles and investing in your own bat to hit back hard.. or a purely defensive system..
There are actually only I believe 3 systems available to the west to defend against IRBMs two of those cost say 5 billion+ and one is many many 10s of billions…
So expensive defence that can be overwhelmed due to inefficiency or really big bat to smack harder…
We are going for the latter judging by the myriad of missile programs going on at the moment. It is the only realistic defence, short of covering the UK and its infrastructure in SAM systems. The money is better spent on the big bat imo.
I think that arranging any kind of true homeland defence capability against ballistic missiles is simply out of reach for a nation like the UK. Places like Israel are small enough to warrant that kind of capability as it’s a more realistic task. Even then, their system has failed against relatively unsophisticated Iranian missiles. Nations like the USA have tailored their ballistic defence systems purely to cope with a small scale launch from North Korea, with the system’s capability to deal with even that threat in doubt. It should be asked whether such a system is worth the cost compared to the capability it would give.
As you say, would you rather rely on stopping the Russian missiles, or instead choose to make the return punch that much bigger.
Defo the later.
And I also worry that too much home defence emphasis, much as something is needed, will take yet more money away from conventional capabilities elsewhere, including offensive as said.
I am more concerned with air and submarine launched cruise missiles than ballistic missiles.
With so few airfield and radar options available, it would not take much to blind us with a pre-emptive strike.
It’s a good point, but the UK had one fundamental advantage and that is geography and isolation, to launch such an attack the Russians would need to essentially cross NATO with its small number of irreplaceable strategic assets. So what does it have to attack the UK with.
3-4 cruise missile armed SSN/SSGN that could generate 20-30 missiles each
60 odd strategic bombers of which they could generate a squadron to attack the UK with 2 missiles each.
The issue for Russia is to attack they would expose those strategic assets to destruction and they cannot be replaced.. losing an in service SSN that can never be replaced to damage a port facility that can be repaired in a short time is not a fair exchange.. losing a regiment of strategic bombers to crater a runway or kill a squadron of typhoons on the ground is not a fair exchange.
At present the reality of balance between Russia and the UK is that they could really not do much strategic damage to each other..if NATO was not a question.. the advantage the UK has is it’s part of NATO so gets to park its tactical assets on Russias door step. It also in reality probably has better conventional strategic assets.. sub wise they are close.. Russia has a few more, UK SSNs are better. But the UK has 2 huge carriers with fifth generation aircraft it could park anywhere it wants.. that’s more pain than Russia can give.
In regards to the bomber fleet, the recent events of the Ukrainian Operation Spider’s Web may mean that the Cold War idea of Russian bomber regiments striking the British coast is less likely. Russia’s bomber fleet is a critical part of its nuclear triad, and has already suffered damage that cannot be repaired until their new bomber enters service (which could be far into the future).Permanently losing more valuable bombers in a gambit to paralyse British airbases for maybe half a week (at the very most) would be a tactical blunder.
That to me is a more realistic threat, but it’s also one that the UK is far better equipped to combat. The UK’s principal defence against cruise missile attack is currently the interceptor aircraft of the RAF, guided by the (upcoming) Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft. Sky Sabre is perfectly capable of defeating a cruise missile attack, arguably better than a system like SAMP/T, given its taller radar and smaller minimum range. Introducing the longer-range variants of the CAMM, which would be useless against anything more potent than the SRBM in the BMD role, but perfectly capable against air breathing threats, would result in a competent defence against cruise missiles.
I understand that Sky Sabre as currently fielded is not intended for homeland defence. However, in a wartime situation, I can imagine at least some of those units being pulled back (given that nations like Poland and Germany already operate large numbers of air defence systems) for protecting critical infrastructure, as well as the placement of more orders for the system.
The question I would ask to anyone who’s worked with these systems (or knows someone that has) is:
What level of training is required to operate a Sky Sabre system? Is it viable to have three or four complete systems purchased for homeland defence and manned by rotating groups of reservists in the UK, or does the complexity of the system necessitate a highly trained complement of operators?
The trouble with Sky Sabre is range; it cannot cover the whole of the UK and we have too few to defend every potential target.
With only three E7s it would not be difficult to time an attack for when none are airborne and they would be a prime target.
There’s no realistic way to cover the entirety of the UK with any current ground-based system. It’s simply not a feasible strategy, and we should probably disregard it as a possibility and instead focus on protecting those key military facilities. If you want to cover as much of the UK as possible, the best way of doing it is to use interceptor aircraft, backed up at a few critical points by Sky Sabre systems to engage leakers. There are too few, but that’s a different argument. It’d be a lot cheaper to purchase more Sky Sabre systems then to introduce the SAMP/T.
You mention range as a negative for the Sky Sabre, but I’d respond by pointing out that the radar of the Sky Sabre system provide a far better detection range against low-altitude targets (like a cruise missile) than the much-lower mounted system on the SAMP/T. Yeah, the Aster theoretically goes further, but in reality, missile range is limited by the detection range of the radar than cues them, meaning that in practice, the difference between the two systems wouldn’t be too big.
Three Wedgetails isn’t great, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that order be pushed back up to five in the upcoming DIP. Still not brilliant, but definitely better.
Their MPAs and long range aviation ( and the Mig 31) can lob cruise and ballistic missiles. Iskander-B type weapons could potentially be parked on the deck of one of their many ghost fleet tankers? Having something to deal with that level of threat would be sensible.
In reference to their MPAs (and their bombers, for that matter), I would assume the current plan is to intercept those aircraft before they can launch their missiles. In that regard, the Typhoon is perhaps the single best equipped and designed aircraft for that role. Air-to-air missiles like the Meteor, which offer >200km ranges against cooperating targets (like an MPA), or the upcoming Stratus RS, a >300-400km multirole BVRAAM/ASM/LACM, offer an advantage in that kind of mission.