The Royal Navy has carried out its first live firing of the Naval Strike Missile (NSM) from a British warship during Exercise Aegir 25 at the Andøya range in northern Norway.
The test was conducted alongside NATO allies Norway and Poland, according to the Ministry of Defence.
Frigate HMS Somerset launched the 400 kg missile, which is designed by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace. The NSM is an anti-ship and land-attack cruise missile that replaces the Royal Navy’s ageing Harpoon system currently fitted to Type 23 frigates and Type 45 destroyers.
The missile has an operational range of more than 200 km, with later variants reaching beyond 300 km. It uses GPS-aided inertial navigation, a laser altimeter, terrain contour matching and an imaging infrared seeker for terminal guidance. The system weighs 400 kg with booster, carries a 120 kg titanium-cased blast and fragmentation warhead, and flies at sea-skimming altitude at speeds up to Mach 0.93.
Kongsberg states that the NSM is already in service with Norway, Poland, the United States, Germany and several other countries, with production continuing for new customers including the UK.
The United Kingdom is in the process of equipping its surface fleet with the Naval Strike Missile, with a total of 11 vessels scheduled to receive the system. The rollout covers ships drawn from both the Type 23 frigate class and the Type 45 destroyer class.
With so few frigates and destroyers in the fleet it seems more than stupid that we can’t equip all of them with NSM. The Anglo-French replacement is still years away so we are going to need these on T26 & T31 too.
Agree. Also the NSM can be fitted into Mk41 vls so that’s another bonus. I’d like to see the entirety of the frigate and destroyer fleet fitted for NSM too. It offers some useful punch to the RN.
Other options are LRASM and/ or a storm shadow derivative.
Purchasing just 11 NSM sets of 8 missiles each was really the bare minimum. It’s worth considering though that upto now no surface warships have engaged another with ship to ship missiles. Most combat has been air launched or submarine Vs surface ship. The NSMs range means a warship has to get relatively close to its enemy to launch it.
The NSM were bought as an interim solution until something better comes along. The 11 are for 6 x T45 and 5 x T31, with T23 taking them until T31 is ready.
If/when T31s get Mk41, they could be used for a few more NSM, but I’m guessing more likely they’ll get loaded up with sea ceptor.
The vertically launched variant is JSM, which can also be launched externally from F35B (wink wink!). We have mk41 launched STRATUS coming down the line, which will be a longer ranged and/or faster option for proper surface to surface combat in place of anti-corvette stuff.
Actually a couple of Egyptian missile boats fired a total of 4 Styx missiles at the Israeli destroyer Eilat (ex HMS Zealous) on October 21, 1967. Eilat was hit 3 times, sinking her with many of her crew killed or injured. It was the first ship to ship missile strike, I believe. At least one of the missile boats fired from with in the habour limits of Part Said while the second may have been at sea.
Cheers CR
I think 11 is all of the T23s and T45s. Everything from here is likely to be vericle launch using the Mk 41 system.
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I suspect the T31 will get them.. that fact they ordered the exact number for T45 and T31 suggests they are.. the simple fact is the T23s will be gone by 2030 in all likelihood.. so they are not buying 5 whole missile systems and dumping them after 5 years.. they will be put on the type 31s. After all the RJ10 Antiship missile is not likely to be operational until the early 2030s so you are looking at the mid to late 2030s before all RN escorts are equipped with it. Even then the RN will probably keep it mounded on the T31s it’s not going to waste perfectly good and expensive strike missiles.
Well it is a step in the right direction… I recall seeing T23s shadowing Russian ships with no ASMs at all just a gun.that was shameful for the RN and UK.