The Ministry of Defence has outlined ongoing work to enhance the firepower of the Royal Navy’s surface fleet as part of a broad modernisation drive.
In response to a written question from Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said the Navy is “undertaking a significant programme to modernise and increase the lethality of the Fleet.”
He noted that “the introduction of Sea Venom and the Naval Strike Missile are key aspects of this programme, which will be followed by further capability upgrades over the next few years.”
According to the Ministry of Defence, these efforts form part of a wider strategy to ensure the Royal Navy retains the ability to counter evolving maritime threats through next-generation precision weapons and system upgrades.
The Naval Strike Missile (NSM) recently achieved its first successful live firing during Exercise Aegir 25 in Norway’s Arctic region, where HMS Somerset launched the weapon alongside Norwegian and Polish allies. The test marked what the Royal Navy described as a major milestone in strengthening its strike capability, demonstrating the deep cooperation between the UK and Norway in maritime defence.
Pollard said at the time that “the NSM is one of the most advanced missiles in our naval arsenal” and that its introduction “will give the Royal Navy and our allies an edge against our enemies.” The missile can engage both sea and land targets at ranges beyond 100 miles and is being integrated across the Type 23 and Type 45 fleets.
Could it be possible to develop a land variant? Similar to what the Yanks did with Tomohawks.
Poland already operates it from land
Fair enough. Probably wouldn’t be a terrible idea if the UK did something similar.
It’d be expensive to host an RA Regiment for the sole purpose of using these weapons, when the scenarios needed for them to be employed are practically doomsday level. Better to have the plans and expertise in place to know that it can be done, and leave it at that.
I’d argue there’s better ways to spend the cash at the moment, such as additional T31 orders.
What we really need is a credible air-launched anti shipping weapon for F35B. It’d not only solve the home defence problem more effectively than a land launched weapon, it’d also increase lethality of any QE task force. Strangely though, it seems to be amazingly low on the priority list for the RN.
A great focused take. If we have enemy surface ships within 100 miles of our coast in a conflict then we really are in serious trouble, better to have assets and lethality to keep them far distant from that point. Yes you might be on the cusp of a conflict with an enemy ship ‘legally’ cruising around at that point but then you aren’t free to take it out at that point and there are far better ways to negate its potential threat than a 100 mile range missile in a fixed location. As you say getting anti ship missiles on aircraft is far more important.
Should add Poland and Norway are a different proposition as Russian ships entering the North Sea would (or pushed closer to Greenland in Norways case) be in range of such a missile as they traverse the necessary open water, so the ships come to them.
Agreed . Putting JSM on UK F35 an absolute no brainer for me , should be No 1 priority for Defence and for once of equal benefit to RAF and RN In the recent Defence Committee enquiry into F35 aside from availablity the biggest criticism was lack of a stand off weapon which seriously compromised the advantage of stealth. We can’t afford to wait for SPEAR 3 integration and in any event when it does eventually arrive (;if ever – have my doubts) it’s range is limited by comparison and warhead far too small. JSM has already been integrated by USAF, Australia and of course Norway so the software fix is there – it’s high time that we joined.
Agreed, it’s crazy to have a strike force suitable for ops in the Pacific without the primary strike airframe not having an AShM.
To me, either we accept it as JSM on external hard points (less of a problem in terms of RCS than I think some people worry about), or we look at Sea Venom. It fits internally and it’s already drop launched, so can clear the bay before the rocket motor fires up. From a higher, faster platform it will have better range. It’ll just be a question if it needs a slightly better/longer motor to get the needed range.
It seems to be very low priority to get any British missiles to be compatible with the F-35B – should be a priority for us. Not being able to fit our missiles is, for me, a good reason to increase purchases of Typhoon and downgrade F35.
But the typhoon doesn’t have the same capabilities as the F35. Bang the drum all you want but the typhoon would be severely limited in a peer to peer engagment.
What??
The Australian Army has down selected two contenders for its Land 8113 Phase 2 project for a land based long range maritime strike missile. Under Land 8113 Phase 1 the ADF is already acquiring a regiment of 42 launchers (7 batteries) of HIMARS (deliveries have begun and test fired at exercise Talisman Sabre). HIMARS long range PrSM missile (currently greater than 300km with future ER variants out to 1,000km) is one option. The second contender is the NSM with Strikemaster launchers (a variant of the Australian Bushmaster vehicle). The NSM is already entering service with the RAN and its air launched JSM version with the RAAF.
With both Raytheon (RTX) and Kongsberg setting up production/assembly facilities in Australia, the decision on a maritime strike missile will be down to cost, range, suitability for maritime strike and commonality of launch platform. Pros for PrSM include longer range than NSM and purchase of an additional regiment of HIMARS launchers is also significant increase in GMLRS land based strike although work still needs to be done on PrSM Increment 2 to develop a proven maritime strike capability and cost per round will be significantly higher than NSM. NSM with its sea skimming profile and blast fragmentation warhead is better optimised and proven ship killer and its acquisition would increase interoperability with the USMC who use a similar twin launcher JLTV mobile variant for its NEMESIS capability developed for operations in the Pacific.
While a land based maritime strike missile might not make sense for the UK, in the context of a conflict in the Pacific island chain and the key choke points across the archipelago its deployment is a ket part of US and its Pacific allies strategy. It’s also a useful A2AD deterent for maundering Chinese naval task groups prone to circumnavigating Australia.
‘Meandering’ Chinese naval task groups.
Hi Jim, Add the USA (deployed) and Australia (on order) to that list, the USMC is really buying into them for land deployment from islands in the Western Pacific. I have always liked how the USMC is quite prepared to buck the “Not invented here” attitude of the other 3 US services when it sees a need. Let’s face it if they hadn’t taken a shine to the Harrier and VTOL we would probably never have developed the F35B to replace it.
Improvise, Adapt and Overcome.
Where’s the mention of any quantities here? Wasn’t it 11 sets of 8? For all the T45s, T23s, T26s, and T31s might need more than 11 sets if you’re going to need cover every ship prior to FC/ASW and have reserves. And any JSM for F35Bs, Typhoons and P8s?
I assume the plan is either to fit them to only the destroyers and the Type 31 frigates, as the Type 26 frigates will have VL-ASMs like FC/ASW.
That, or they’ll rotate them between ships as they do with Phalanx units.
Such a perpetual peacetime strategy. Loose a vessel at sea and nothing to transfer to buddy vessel in port. Ho hum.
Encouraging news and not before time to deliver new weapons and technology to the fleet.
@Jim
Absolute rubbish. Poland has NOT deployed NSM on land. The missile has been ordered for delivery 2026-2032 but there have been no deliveries yet. Why do you bother posting crap like this when its so easy to check the facts? Idiot
Seriously, if he’s put down incorrect information, update him and us. We’ll chat about it and debate it. There’s a good community here withe the best intentions.
No need to call anyone an idiot.
It’s a bit out of order calling people idiots. I know zilch about NSM but, if I type “Naval Strike Missile in Polish Service” into Google the response is such:
“Poland operates its Naval Strike Missile (NSM) Coastal Defence System through two existing Naval Missile Units (NDRs) and is expanding this capability by ordering two more divisions, which will increase the number of NSM batteries and command vehicles.”
I also read an article on a site called NavalNews discussing the possibility of transferring units of Polish Coastal Batteries to Ukraine, missiles, radars and launchers. This article states: “The Polish CDS fires the Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace NSM (Naval Strike Missile) Block 1 missiles.”
Now, I don’t know if that’s all accurate but, if it is, you’d have to surely consider the possibility that you are the idiot, right?
Quite obviously David Lloyd is the idiot here, and an unnecessarily badly mannered one at that…..