The Ministry of Defence has signed new contracts with Thales in the UK for hundreds more Lightweight Multirole Missiles, an order intended to rebuild stockpiles and support the air defence of British forces in the Middle East, according to the department.
The contracts, announced on 1 June 2026, are worth a combined £36 million. According to the Ministry of Defence, deliveries will begin in the coming months and run through 2026. The most recent agreement was placed by the National Armaments Director Group in May and follows a further order for the same missile in April.
The Lightweight Multirole Missile, known as LMM, is designed and built by Thales at its Belfast facility, where the work supports around 700 jobs. The department said the orders form part of a wider effort, run with the National Armaments Director Group, to strengthen resilience in munitions supply chains so that the UK can sustain operations alongside allies.
The LMM is a lightweight precision-guided weapon developed for use against a range of targets including small aircraft, fast boats and, increasingly, uncrewed systems. It has been adopted across all three British services, and is fired from the Royal Navy’s Wildcat helicopters as well as from ground-based launchers.
According to the Ministry of Defence, the missile has been used to defeat drone attacks in the Middle East, with more than 100 drones shot down using the weapon, including by RAF Regiment gunners operating the Rapid Sentry air defence system.
Defence Secretary John Healey described the orders as the government’s industrial partnership with the defence sector in practice. “Our UK defence industry is the backbone of our Armed Forces. This is our new partnership with industry in action,” he said. “We’re getting UK-built kit into the hands of our forces faster as we support good skilled jobs and drive growth across the UK. These interceptor missiles are battle-proven – successfully used in action by our RAF sharp shooters over recent months.” He added that the missiles would help British forces keep the UK and its partners more secure in the Middle East and beyond.
The contracts come as the UK has increased its military presence across the Middle East, with the Ministry of Defence reporting more than 1,000 personnel deployed in the region, among them fast jet squadrons and specialist counter-drone teams. British air defence assets have also operated from UK bases in Cyprus, where Wildcat helicopters carrying the missile have been used in the defence of bases and allied forces.
The LMM was originally developed for the helicopter-launched role before being adapted for ground and naval launchers, and its growing use against drones reflects a wider shift in air defence priorities. The proliferation of cheap uncrewed aircraft has placed a premium on interceptors that can engage them at low cost relative to larger surface-to-air missiles, and the LMM sits in that category.
Damn a good news story, that’s not going to go down well on here.
I’m sure they’ll find something to complain about lol.
Probably… “too few ordered”, “too long to deliver”, “not made in England”, “not hypersonic”, “no go-faster stripes”, “useless against submarines”, etc
The lack of promotion of the British knee is key issue and that requires the immediate spending of 100 billion on compulsory programme of knee measurement. The complete lack of action turning over the entirety of Gloucestershire to turnip production is OUTRAGEOUS. WHY OH WHY HASN’T THE GOVERNMENT IMMEDIATELY RESTARTED PRODUCTION OF (insert whatever piece of obsolete equipment you fancy). I hope you appreciate my depth of feeling on this issue.
i can see the fume now… its coming
I was expecting a bit more from the DIP, but it is what it is…
We are still looking at weeks for the DIP…so it looks like late june or early July.
We’ll probably be saying “next month” when we move into autumn. Hopefully not though🤞
Isn’t this just replacing what’s been fired?
Is Starstreak being replaced by LMM in its entirety or are these being bought in anticipation of shooting down drones that don’t require anything too advanced?
It’s probably fair to say the RAF and navy has shot off a fairly large number of these, with drone kills in the hundred and not tens reported..
It’s one of those UK weapon systems that went under the radar a bit.. but seems to be a bit of a mid 21c panacea.. just enough, effective against a wide range of targets, platform agnostic and very cheap.
It’s great news that rapid sentry is working so well and was developed so quickly and is in reality well beyond a cheap anti drone weapon but is a solid short range air defence system ( probably the true replacement for rapier ).
Keeping this production line hot and able to scale up is probably a really important national asset.
I do wonder when the army will decide that it’s got a huge anti drone and general strike capability in 1st regiment AAC and equipment all it’s wildcats with LMM
If they were maximising this, the RAF regiment would have batteries for every major airbase, the navy would have batteries for the 3 major port facilities and the army would have deployable units.. I would even go so far as to say their should be a reserve home defence set or batteries for some core civilian infrastructure we cannot lose.
Long range drones are going to be a thing and a cheap 8km range missile is probably the way forward to counter these..
In a future war you have to assume Russia would try and lob many hundreds of 2500km range 400-600kmph long range drones at the Uk and a Mach 1.5 8km range missile costing £50,000 is just the sauce for those bangers .
How many is “hundreds?” As they say, 100 were used in just a couple of weeks in a low intensity (for us) conflict. In a high intensity conflict I assume we would go though these like hot cakes.