The Ministry of DefenCe has announced a significant order of Lightweight Multirole Missiles (LMM) from Thales UK.
The £176 million contract aims to boost short-range air defence capabilities for the British Army and the Royal Navy, according to the Ministry of Defence.
The LMMs, weighing just 13kg each, are designed to target drones, helicopters, other aircraft, and small, fast maritime threats. They will be deployed on platforms such as the Stormer combat vehicles for the Army and the Royal Navy’s Martlet maritime anti-surface missile system on Wildcat helicopters.
This move supports 135 jobs at Thales’ Belfast site and stimulates economic growth through small and medium enterprises within the local supply chain.
Highlighting the significance of this order, Maria Eagle, Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry, stated, “In a more dangerous world, we must continue to provide weapons to Ukraine but also replenish our own stocks. Our new order of Lightweight Multirole Missiles from Thales UK will support this, providing our Armed Forces with versatile missiles that can be used against threats such as drones, helicopters, and small maritime targets.”
She added that the contract exemplifies how defence investment can foster economic growth and sustain UK jobs.
LMMs have already seen action, first fired from a Wildcat helicopter during the Royal Navy’s Carrier Strike Group deployment in the Bay of Bengal in 2021. The Martlet missile system has since been involved in operations like Operation Prosperity Guardian, which protects commercial vessels from Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea.
Andy Start, CEO of Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), emphasised the missile’s versatility and value, “As we have seen during UK military operations and when used by our Ukrainian allies, LMM is a versatile and valuable missile in a variety of battlespaces. Now more than ever, we need to ensure UK Armed Forces and our allies are fully equipped to defeat the evolving global threats we face. This order with Thales UK is a key element of that collective effort.”
This order follows a previous £69 million contract with Thales UK earlier this year to secure the supply chain for key missile components. Production at the Thales Belfast site has doubled since the conflict in Ukraine, reflecting the growing global demand for air defence capabilities.
Alex Cresswell, CEO of Thales UK, remarked, “Today’s contract announcement reflects the enduring partnership between the UK MOD and Thales for the provision of lightweight weapons. I look forward to continuing to work closely together with the Ministry of Defence to deliver the capabilities our Armed Forces need, and to make industry more resilient to deal with increasing demand.”
Maria Eagle, Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry, said:
“In a more dangerous world, we must continue to provide weapons to Ukraine but also replenish our own stocks. Our new order of Lightweight Multirole Missiles from Thales UK will support this, providing our Armed Forces with versatile missiles that can be used against threats such as drones, helicopters and small maritime targets. This contract is also a great example of how defence investment can support economic growth and sustain jobs in the UK for years to come.”
Well the government seem to be going in the right direction at the moment. 🙏
it was the previous government that ordered it these new clowns just added to it
same old same old.
Well hopefully these clowns don’t cut anything Tim 🙏 again.
Seems about right. The previous Government set a budget and the military will keep buying stuff especially what was in the pipeline. Eventually the budget will run out and by then a plan will be needed.
Yea they’ve added another 200% to the order, which was much needed
£176m is not a significant order and means serious lack of missiles in the event of a war. Not sure you can count that as right direction.
they’ll donate half of them to the Ukrainian forces and we’ll end up with the usual f all.
I doubt it, we haven’t donated anything from active stock that wasn’t already scheduled for replacement. Same for pretty much every country. Lucky old kit for western countries seem to be worlds ahead of Russian kit.
NLAW and LMM were not scheduled for replacement. Neither was all the 155, GMLRS or Brimstone 2 that have been sent…
Fair but the NLAW were close to end of service life and needed replacing. 155 weren’t our stock. GMLRS were meant to come from the reserve stock (that was what the orginal press release stated and werent current spec) but clearly it appears that stock wasn’t in usable condition and so came out of active. Brimstone are being replaced as we speak with enhanced guidance models. LMM were due to be discontinued I believe or at least the platforms they were on. It’s hardly surprising as all NATO countries knew that any hardware donated would fall into Russian hands and… Read more »
Nope.. GMLRS were from our main stock. We only had a couple of thousand… 155 – We sent Ukraine a good chunk of our own stockpile, luckily BAE Washington is working at full speed so it should have been replaced by now.. Brimstone was sent in 2 models: Single Mode which had around 5 years life left before needing re-life, and Brimstone 2 which was less than 7 years in service…20 year shelf life. Brimstone 3 has not entered service/full production yet. Brimstone 2 is still main production and stockpile. LMM discontinued?? – It was brand new. In fact hadn’t… Read more »
Don’t get me wrong it’s no great shakes, and yes far from enough but something better than nothing .And 2.5% is definitely not enough on Defence 😟
We are far behind a lot of nations when it comes to helping Ukraine, it’s just the news focuses on what we give rather than comparing. If they compared policticans would be forced into a one up man ship, on the basis they keep saying the UK is top 5 military, when clearly that’s no longer true. Will be interesting if the newspapers change their stance now that Labour is in charge, but we need a bit of time to tell as can’t complain yet as anything given was already in the works and labour is hiding behind the defence… Read more »
You could be right about that? Bulk 🛒 buy of 200-300 missiles? Another dozen Apache’s might be useful. Main concern here is the relatively short range of these missiles if only 8km. 1/2 more or double again. Hope there’s enough lower tech stuff being ordered too like CIWS and 30mm to go around fleet and the new 57/40mm ammo and ready go.. Lol 😁
Martlet cost £50,000 per missile in the original order…but that included the entire development and initial testing costs….factor in inflation and thats £71k in todays money. c£10k of that will be the dev costs though.
I think this order is for around 2,500-3,000 missiles….(unit price of £59k to c£71k).
Thanks for the calculation. Always nice to get some numbers, even if speculative.
Yes, nice one as my calc guess was totally out. That’s quite a good quantity then.
Your assuming that it’s just the missile cost that is being paid, which is unlikely. Probably a portion for future upgrades, a portion for mid service upgrades, a potion for service contract and of course a portion into back pockets (multiple uk arms companies have been caught doing it overseas, seems highly unlikely they arent also doing it domestically)
MoD have already given Thales a separate contract for £69m earlier in the year for ‘supply chain’ on missiles….
This is a pure missile order…no launchers either…
Bribes are not a thing in UK MoD procurement…anyway the bribes go from the supplier to the purchaser….which is rather obviously not the case in this example…
If you believe the bribe point then can I have what your smoking.
Huge bribes were paid to many overseas governments for orders, you really think that it doesn’t also go on locally.
I’d suggest looking at the legal issues that BAE got into around Al-Yamamah if I were you…
There’s a good reason why UK defence companies will never try that again…
And still it doesn’t change the point that you seem to think that the MoD has to pay Thales a ‘bribe’ to buy its missiles…which is the daftest thing I’ve heard all year…
I suggest you look at the number of legal issues BAe has got itself into over the last few decades and consider none of them stopped then and they just kept doing it. There are multiple allegations going on even now.
Reality is defence expenditure is too open to it, massive contracts decided by a few low paid policticans and civil servants, no matter the country.
If anyone can explain to me why they have massive tax breaks in the uk for selling stuff overseas, I would love to hear it.
That will be about 5500 missiles based on #30k a pop. Increased costs offset by repeat orders and scale of order….rough calcs. Assume these all go into UK inventory allowing some of the older existing examples in inventory to be released to Ukr.
I think its more like 2,500-3,000 based on original cost and compound inflation since then.
It is a significant order for these light missiles. £176 million buys a lot of the LMM missiles
Let’s see. If the numbers are large then the government always published the order size, if they aren’t it’s kept hush under national scrutiny argument.
All contracts have to be filed for public viewing within a specified time frame, let’s see if that contract contains numbers or just lots of black marker pen. As they haven’t already stated the number is highly telling in my opinion.
proof is in the eating.labour has promised everything to everyone when it actually happens I’ll be well impressed after so many years of cut,cut, cut all of the branches have been cut and now the whole defence tree needs propping up.
On the contrary they have promised very little
No Labour fan to be honest ,and both the Tory government and Labour have dismantled our forces over the year’s it’s unforgivable .Sadly if they do prop the tree back up its going to take time.But have we got time. ?
The article says that the order is meant to boost short range air defence capabilities, has Martlet superseded Starstreak?
They are also buying 12 VAMTAC Rapidrangers. Wonder if those are to house the new missiles.
Yes, an interim purchase. Far Inferior to Stormer I believe, but available quickly to replace Stormer given to UKR.
Army SHORAD set to triple, details awaited as to just how that happens, as always.
It’s got to be a land Ceptor and/ or gun and laser options.
Maybe they can utilise some of the Boxer chassis’ on order and convert them into the Skyguard with 30mm and Starstreak/LMM?
It’s been reported there is a Boxer solution, yes.
The 12 Rapid Ranger are a quick interim, not the replacement. Thank God.
LMM has been developed from the Starstreak project. It uses the same launching tube for both MANPADs use and when vehicle based. Both are made by Thales UK in Belfast and use the same supply chain. Starstreak is still in use (we have just deployed personnel to Paris to assist with air defence for the Olympics, like they did in 2012) and the RA have ordered URO VAMTAC vehicles to replace the Stormers sent to Ukraine in order to maintain the capability.
and the Ukrainians will gain little from having them just as everything else that has been given to them, it doesn’t appear that all the western kit has changed much.
Other than the invasion was halted!. Various manpads, NLAW and JAVELIN helped stop them in their tracks at outset. Artillery / MLRS etc in various forms allowed them to push Russians back in Late 2022.
Higher end air defence has limited the Russian airforce operations and systems such as Stormshadow have helped push the Russian navy out of forward bases..
Key issue is lack of mass to kick Russians out.
Without western kit Ukraine would have already lost. Ukraine will struggle to use equipment as effectively as western militaries simply due to reduced training and what must be the most complicated logistics system in the world, but to say western equipment hasn’t done anything is farcical. Just ask the crews of Rostov-on-Don and Minsk how they feel about Storm Shadow.
I’d point out that Russia has been stopped in Donetsk and Luhansk, despite having massive superiority in mapower and equipment (and airpower).
I for one remember the days of HIMARS GMLRSing any Russian ammo depot that was anywhere near the frontline, and Western provided artillery forcing Russian forces back from Mikolaiv and Kherson, as well as the two Kharkiv offensives (let alone the impact that Javelin, NLAW, Panzerfaust and Bayraktar had on the Russian advance on Kyiv!)
I certainly hope not.
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but LMM is intended as a lower cost alternative to Starstreak that can cover a couple of extra roles due to some wider standardisation.
Starstreak is faster (a lot faster), and has a warhead optimised for AAW. LMM’s warhead is, I believe, a standard blast fragmentation, so more widely applicable for hitting surface targets like light-skinned vehicles and small boats.
LMM is also in a package that can be fed into a MANPADS, vehicle launcher, or onto a wildcat. I don’t think Starstreak is quite as versatile.
So, not superceded, but complementary.
Starstreak can be used as a manpads with the same launcher as Martlet, it’s just a case of which launch tube you load. Same goes for every platform.
Ah, thanks, that’s good to know. So it’s just speed and warhead, essentially then?
I don’t know enough to say those are the only differences. I’d bet the burn time on Martlet’s motor would be longer but that’s purely speculation.
I’d say the key is:
Starstreak – for fast jets and pop up attack helicopters
Martlet – anything unarmoured
LMM has a dialable warhead. Blast frag or penetration.
You learn something new every day! So some level of use against armoured targets then, although I presume not MBTs and suchlike?
Yep.
No it hasn’t. LMM (not Martlet, thats the name for the Wildcat/LMM combination) is for use against targets that Starstreak will struggle with i.e. small targets like UAV’s that need a proximity warhead to be efficiently dealt with. It also can be used against helos and slower moving manned aircraft. Starstreak was developed, trialled and ready to go in Starstreak 2 configuration around 2010. This was to follow on and ultimately replace the original Starstreak. But that order was cancelled in favour of developing and fielding LMM. MoD have now contracted Thales to develop a new Starstreak version, which presumably… Read more »
No, Martlet has not replaced Starstreak HVM. Martlet tops out at about M1.5, whereas HVM is closer to M4. HVM was designed specifically to target attack helicopters. Where its speed was designed to counter the helicopter’s need to keep the target in view for their wire guided, radio command guided or laser guided ATGMs. Thereby taking out the helicopter before the ATGM can hit the target. Martlet has proven it can be used against both drones and helicopters. It has also been used against Russian Su25 attack aircraft, with a number knocked down so far. However, Martlet is also being… Read more »
What is going on, why are we getting so much good news recently? If this is so easy for Labour to achieve just a few weeks into their premiership, it makes me wonder why the bloody hell the Tories didn’t do it particularly during the election
The way this works is; stuff goes into the pipeline and needs to be signed off by a minister. If there is an election coming up that is delayed so the new government isn’t lumbered with a decision by the outgoing one. So stuff just then gets signed off on the advice of CS when the election outcome is known.
So in short; if the Tories had won you’d have seen exactly the same stuff.
The word on the street was that all of this was agreed and ready for pre election announcement and Rishi then called an early election……
Wouldn’t surprise me, a lot of conservative PM were taken by surprise that they needed a real job so soon. I suspect they were trying to time a load of good news then call the election in autumn but sunak was worried he wouldn’t last that long.
risky sunak was a clown 🤡.
He was a bad leader and only focused on self gain but a clown is harsh as we have boris and truss before him having that crown.
I’m no Tory fan but I have to disagree. I see Sunak as a conscientious decent bloke; responsible chancellor. Bit disconnected as a result of a privileged background but no worse than most of the public school tories. He and Hunt did a decent 2 year job of putting the country back on the rails after 12 years of Cameron, May, Johnson and Truss derailment which drove the country into the ground. Too little too late. He took the fall for the rest of them.
Let’s put it this way.
It had gone noticeable quiet which meant to me that good news was being hoarded up to blast out with the 2.5% message – we are on it and thing are happening.
There were a good few people quietly saying future things looked good without being too specific – contracts were clearly in the bag – nothing said just a lot of happy confident people – but after a while you know what it means.
Yeah agreed.
Cheers
They haven’t, this stuffs been months in the making.
They are just getting all of the non cancellable contracts out of the way, once these are over reality will set in then we can see if its a positive or not.
both parties I the run up to 5 election gave bland comments about the defense of the nation I think the new lot will be worth about the costs of commitments and contracts already signed in a natural cynic but I really don’t think much will improve under starmers premiership.😡😡
Need to be sidearming these on 30mm bushnaster guns in escorts and OPVs.
We don’t need that old American stuff. We have a 40mm option that’s much better
Which one?
Bofors, it’s a significantly better naval weapon, longer range and higher rate of fire. Who needs armour penetration?
CT40…but we won’t be changing from 30mm Bushmaster on ships as its fairly new, and there are some interesting rounds being developed elsewhere. It’s also a far easier installation on ships than the full RapidFire turret from France that has CT40…
we already have 30mm guns in service, and the LMM is already trialled on them:
Royal Navy test-fires ship-mounted Martlet Lightweight Multi-role Missile | Navy Lookout
There’s already a Thales/Kraken 2*4 LMM mount with GPMG on existence that I’d think could be up gunned.
MSI Seahawk Sigma has been around for an age. RN trialled it on T23 with LMM but there were issues with efflux. It ‘might’ make a return on T26…
My worry is that should the Mod decide to increase the size of our forces where they will put them. A couple of examples, RAF Halton closing. Woolwich Barracks slated for closure.
id have thought that the martlet system would have come into its own during the current houthi issue. with the system more widely deployed it would have fired ordnance costing far less than the ones used by warships.
After the Ukr Containers Ship showing what can be done with SLRs we should cut it now and issue SLRs instead.
Far Cheaper
And… Well… Its SLR!
😁
And it sure as hell hurt less on the recoil than the old .303s. They always used to say there were three cracks when you fired a .303. First the round being fired, second it breaking the sound barrier, third the butt of the rifle cracking your collar bone if you didn’t have it pulled in tight.
Good news on getting more but is there any talk of an ER version of these type of missiles? What is its range 8km or something? An extra 4-8 km would be useful if not asking too much or make a new variant, that can go into an Ancilia or SeaRam/RAM type launcher? Like to see this to be deployable on navy ships that don’t have CAMM/Aster.
Hi Quentin,
I agree with your wish list, but I think I would rather see the fire and forget version developed and deployed that has been proposed by Thales, which I believe uses the laser to cue the missile seeker onto the target and then uses some kind of visual tracking (can’t remember the precise details). The current version is laser guided all the way so you can only engage as many targets as you have lasers… some of a disadvantage if facing multiple drones, a la Ukraine.
Cheers CR
Hi CR, yes, sounds even better. Hopefully evolved iterations to come soon plus adapting to fire off launch platforms like Ancilia and Thales /Kraken RWS.
CR,
Evidently Thales has proposed at least the following additional seekers: SAL, IR, IIR and GPS/INS. Have no data on each alternative proposal’s impact on baseline cost of missile. SWAGs or WAGs hazarded by anyone?
SAL would be roughly same cost. There is only an IIR ‘lo cost’ seeker around, not IR, its already been developed but likely costs more. GPS/INS doesn’t really make much sense to be honest…
It’s a m1.5 missile though…engagement times will be pretty quick so the whole ‘being overwhelmed’ thing is a little over egged…
Thanks, had no clue re relative costs. 🤔👍
If Thales are clever. They could keep the laser guidance. Starstreak and LMM use a variation of semi-automatic command line of sight (SACLOS). Where a pair of lasers draw a grid pattern over the target. The firing unit then determines where the missiles is in relation to the grid. Giving steering commands to the missile (darts) via data-link to make sure they intercept the target. Another method is laser beam riding as used by Saab’s RBS70. This is the same as semi-active laser homing (SALH). Where the firing unit bounces a laser off the target, which the missile then homes… Read more »
A beam rider is not the same as SALH (which uses a seeker on the front of the weapon to find the reflected laser dot on the target as you say)… beam rider systems use a couple / few slightly offset lasers or a coded laser field in some way with a small overlap in the field of each laser if using multiple). The missile looks backwards away from the target (towards the launcher) and checks the lasers it can see. If it can only see 1 laser, or the field coding tells it it is off line, it uses… Read more »
I agree beam riding is not the same as SALH. Just reread what I wrote, my apologies, plonker! To clarify, Saab say their RBS70 is a beam rider. Where the firing unit is required to keep a laser on the target, then the missile flies towards the target along the beam. To be beam riding traditionally based on radar, the missile would try to stay within the beam. Where using the most basic form of radio inferometery, the missile would try to stay in the center. The inferometer measures signal strength. Radar based beam riding faces significant issues over distance,… Read more »
Laser beams do not have to be a small pencil beam… they can diverge into a cone (they always will due to diffraction but normally you think of ones that are highly focussed and collimated but even these at longer distance will have a spot spread out over a larger area)… alternatively you can scan it to get an area effect as you suggest Starstreak does adding a modulation dependent on how far off axis your are pointing it. Either way you can get the missile to sit within the beam or beam field. Even if you were working with… Read more »
An ER variant would seem to be a rational development, sometime post IOC (currently 2025). Thales should have some on-line capability to receive our collective suggestions. 🤔😉
Any ER version gets you out of visual ID range of the target and into needing IFF… Then you are into a whole lot of complexity.
MODE 5 receiver, crypto management, aerials, displays… Suddenly it’s not a simple cheap and portable system anymore.
I was wondering about this. Isn’t the idea to get LMM to the limit of practical visual ID and targetting, not beyond it? What’s the practical range of a soldier holding laser targetting? If we are already there at 5 miles, ER would the wrong way to go. Also if the opportunity to spot targets at greater than 5 miles is limited in the first place, why would you waste money increasing the range of the effector? You can imagine for smaller drones, ER would be pointless. Far more useful to get better targetting. On the other hand you might… Read more »
From a Wildcat range against FIAC surface targets will be greater because of the added speed of the aircraft and it being at altitude. Wildcat has a radar and you can slew the EO onto tracks . This will provide you with visual ID from a really long way out…far longer than the missiles range. However, The missile flight time at its max range is then an issue as its around 16 seconds. You need to illuminate the target for that amount of time, get the hit and then shift target and lock up(Few seconds), fire, another 16s flight time,… Read more »
GB, thanks always for your technical feedback. With the Supacat launched twin ASRAAM, which still must have a decent range, would that just be optics based or also with radar?
The limited engagement range would also work against you bringing you closer to your adversary who might have more range with theirs which will end in disaster. I guess this is offset with the LMM-Martlet /Venom type options and having NLOS ER would come at cost. Choose your weapons!!! So a bit of both please… Lol 😁
I think the missile load ( maximum number of targets which can be engaged) of the Wildcat is calculated and matched to LMMs range, speed and guidance such that the helicopter can serially but effectively engage a swarm of attack boats safely – without putting itself at risk of being targeted something like a Stinger.
Thank you Gunbuster for your expertise and insight. It make all the difference in these threads.
The only sensible ER version would be the proposed single rocket motor version that dispenses with the kick motor and uses the space saved for additional propellant. The only platform that could really make use of that would be Wildcat due to the efflux from a ground launch.
Not sure we can have too many missiles
At 30k per missile that seems to add up to a fair few missiles. Good to get started with.
£176 million with approx say 50k per missile is a lot of missiles. More good news. Stockpiles to replenish, preparations much needed and overdue.
I think it’s only right that we as a nation spend all we can on defense military small drones and close attack missile, it’s our belief to be advanced in the next technology which Britain has always achieved.