Sweden has expanded its acquisition of the Common Anti-air Modular Missile, signing a contract amendment with MBDA to enable further deliveries for the country’s air defence requirements.
The new agreement builds on an initial 2023 order placed by the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) for CAMM missiles to be employed within MBDA’s Sea Ceptor system, which Sweden is integrating onto its Visby-class corvettes.
Lorenzo Mariani, MBDA’s Executive Group Director for Sales and Business Development, said in the release that “Sweden continues to place its trust in MBDA’s world-class capabilities with this contract for further CAMM.”
He added that through this continued partnership, “Sweden is strengthening the protection of its sovereign airspace, while maintaining interoperability and security with its European and NATO allies.” Mariani also highlighted CAMM’s performance, describing it as a missile that “has proven itself against the type of evolving threats we are seeing today.”
According to the company, CAMM provides a common stockpile for short- to medium-range air defence across land and maritime platforms. The system’s soft-vertical-launch mechanism is stated to offer minimal launch signature and full 360-degree engagement coverage, while enabling rapid firing against multiple simultaneous threats.
MBDA notes that operators have described the missile’s accuracy as sufficient to strike “targets as small as a tennis ball traveling at twice the speed of sound.”
MBDA said the latest Swedish order reflects a long-running relationship with the country’s defence sector. The company stated that deepening industrial cooperation remains central to its operating model, describing such collaboration as “a golden thread… through multiple successful programmes.”
Does anyone have a number on how many the UK is planning to buy? Generally, the UK has been pretty good with purchasing large stockpile post-Cold War compared to the continental powers – our stocks of Storm Shadow, for example, are significantly larger than those of France.
Storm Shadow stocks were good. I know France also had a pretty tiny Meteor order (160, raised from 100… for 200+ Rafale planned in service) but I’m not sure the UK is generally too much better. I’ve heard Aster stocks don’t allow much redundancy beyond loading their relevant vessels. I’d be happy to be wrong, though. ASRAAM might have been in the high hundreds (at least 400 missiles were donated to Ukraine so it could have been more – possibly 1-2k range) and CAMM is based on the same platform. There will be around 600-700 total VLS cells for CAMM in the fleet when all the T26/T31s are in service though for reference. I could see the MOD ordering enough to cover that but not necessarily incorporating too many spares. I would love to be wrong though, and to hear any more definitive information if it’s available.
I treat the tennis ball claim with some, nay, a lot of scepticism. Remember Sea Wolf was claimed to be able to hit a 4″ shell?
Seriously though, the Baltic nations are showing the way in most areas of defence. Pity our political clowns do not.
I’m pretty sure, some others may confirm that Sea Wolf did indeed hit a 4.5 inch Shell under test conditions.
Test…
Indeed it did.
@GunBuster has stated that he was the camera operator for that shot.
It’ll l be interesting to know if the UK is looking at getting any CAMM, CAMM-ER or CAMM-MR for the T31s and even either of the later two for T26s and even GBAD?
T31 only has 12 vls. Mushroom farms can probably only take base CANM anyway
Firstly, this is a fantastic vote of confidence in CAMM.
T31 will have Mk41 VLS at some point and those will be able to take the MR varietal possibly in addition to the standard mushroom tubes. The mushrooms could go to the sides of the Mk41 as they are shorter.
It will be interesting to see what Italy does as it has CAMM-ER as well as A30 VLS.
We don’t really know which flavour of CAMM T45 will end up with. There is no good reason why you cannot soft launch the larger flavours TBH or indeed put an insert in a lager tube to take the smaller missile.
Must be approaching the point where an extension, or additional factory, is warranted?
Nice if we could put this on our patrol ships . Has ever wishful thinking 😏
These our their major combatants not OPVs, how much money do you want to spend putting a handful of CAMM on our OPVs when we can’t even equip our frigates
T26 has plenty of kit including 5″, CAMM and Mk41 VLS.
T45 will be fine when it has the CAMM fitted to add to the A30 – I know you would like a sonar and Father Christmas may just bring one in his early DIP sack?
T31 with Mk41 added will also be very, very handy and I can see a basic CAPTAS towed sonar being added – maybe also in the Father Christmas’ early DIP sack?
Camm is not an inpenitrable defense, and we don’t have anything to go in Mk41
T45 is getting more terribly designed mushroom farms not A30
DIP will be a disaster or a list of never to be fulfilled promises, just look at our financial situation
“Camm is not an inpenitrable defense”
There is no such thing as impenetrable defence – there is appropriate and useful defence which CAMM is for some threat profiles.
“and we don’t have anything to go in Mk41”
We are developing a line of missiles with France that are Mk41 compatible.
“T45 is getting more terribly designed mushroom farms not A30”
T45 has 48 A30 missiles and is getting additional CAMM. Which flavour of CAMM is not known.
Which ones, precisely?
Absolutely true we can’t afford them for our major vessels ,however OPV will undoubtedly be in a hots zone and a pop gun won’t do the trick . But Iike I said in my post wishful thinking .Cheers 🍺
I think the only upgrades to the River that make sense are the new helo landing system, the Schiebel UAV to enhance surveillance capability and maybe the 40mm Bofors – which I think could be directed by the existing FCEO so would not need an expensive radar upgrade. It would give better AA and defence against small boat swarms. Anything more is taking money best spent on T31.
I wonder if this is thinking ahead to frigate futures, not just the Visbys. Possible sign of a Babcock frigate order?