The Ministry of Defence has confirmed the delivery of the first batch of newly built Next-generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon (NLAW) missiles.
This initial stock replenishment comes after a considerable portion of the existing NLAWs were supplied to Ukraine, supporting its defence against Russia’s invasion.
James Cartlidge MP, the Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, answered a written question from John Healey MP, the Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, confirming that the first newly built NLAW missiles were received in July 2023 as part of a larger contract running until December 2026.
Healey asked:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department has taken delivery of the first newly UK-built NLAW missiles.”
Cartlidge answered:
“Following significant Granting in Kind of Next generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon (NLAW) missiles to Ukraine, the Ministry of Defence placed a contract for replenishment in December 2022. The initial delivery of replenishment missiles into UK stock was successfully achieved in July 2023, with the remaining contracted quantities being delivered in multiple batches between now and December 2026.”
The procurement process was initiated in December 2022 when the Ministry of Defence placed a £229 million contract. The deal will see thousands of Next Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon (NLAW) systems assembled in Northern Ireland and delivered to the British Army.
Are we sending any more to Ukraine?
Hard to imagine that we wouldn’t at some point
Would make sense to at least send small batches that are approaching the end of their shelf life, although all of those may have already been sent.
As ever, we don’t seem to be told whether the replenishment numbers are of the same order as the donation numbers. It could be justified that they aren’t if the system was due to be retired soon, but not the case for NLAW as far as I know. If anything, the Ukraine war should have shown how effective these relatively cheap systems are, and given impetus to increase our stocks.
I googled the unit cost and divided that by the £229m order. Comes to 11,450. Again with thanks to Google it says we have donated something in the region of 5,000 units. Very much back of the envelope calculations but it looks like it’s a large enough order to replenish stocks and donate extra units.
Promising analysis. I expect Thales will have found some excuse to increase the unit price well beyond normal inflation expectations. Does anyone calculate / record / measure what ‘defence inflation’ is? I know certain industries are analysed for such things, but not sure the defence industry is transparent enough to allow this.
Has the range been extended in the new ones? It needs to be.
NLAW has greater effective firing range than its predecessor LAW80 (800m rather than 500m) which itself was superior to the 200m range of the 1960s era US M72 66mm LAW (in use in UK to 1984).
What sort of range do you think a short-range manportable shoulder launched LAW should have?
A very skilled operator could hit a target with NLAW at 1,000m (max range)
Milan was deemed man portable with a range of 1800yds. With the 115mm warhead it could cope with re-active armour.
Milan – different category of AT weapon, yet still manportable (by 2-men). It was a crew-served weapon, was tripod-mounted, not shoulder launched and medium range not short range. NLAW is not attempting to do what Milan could do. Horses for courses – we have: *short range AT, relatively light weapon, generally single use (throwaway), shoulder-launched, carried and used by a single individual eg ‘general purpose infantrymen’ several per section would be typical. *medium range AT – tripod or veh mounted. Heavier weapon. Crew-served. Operated by specialists from the AT Platoon. Held centrally in Battalion’s AT platoon. *long range AT –… Read more »
I feel like anyone who thinks an NLAW doesn’t have enough range hasn’t had to drag one over Sennybrige.
I’ll take your word for it. Last A/Tk weapon I lugged was a Charlie G!!
Agreed!
NLAW has a range of 800m that’s a long range..engagement ranges for infantry are usually around 300m…marksmen and squad support weapons 400-600m. If you look just at European combat experience that average infantry engagement range is considered to be around 200m and armour vs armour 600m…the European countryside is a crowded place…when your out walking next consider it as a hunter would and see how easy it is to draw long lines of sight beyond 500 yards….then think about how easy it is to see something that’s is hiding 500 yards away…then finally think about hitting it…500yards is a very… Read more »
Good, the way that the Ukrainians were getting through them, we don’t just want to replenish stocks but increase them. Although to be fair to the Army, thanks to Ukrainians’ hard work, I’m not sure what they’ll have left to fire them at..!
It would be really interesting to see the usage rates for the different weapon types over the course of the Ukraine war. I feel like we heard about / saw a lot of NLAW and Javelin kills in the early stages, but not so much since, probably as a result of the Russians changing their tactics once they realised how vulnerable they were to these weapons.
Tbf the Russians didn’t really change their tactics because of NLAW and Jav specifically. They changed their tactics because they where terrible. They expected minimal resistance and tried to thunder run down roads in column, which was a perfect recipie for infantry with AT weapons to close in and knock them out.
They did not really have any option other than to thunder down roads as the idiot Putin launched an offensive in the mud season when off road travel is not really practical…if he had waited until later in spring he probably would have succeeded in the decapitation….
Well yes and no. To a certain degree they had to stick to roads, but they certainly didn’t have to thunder run it. A thunder run means you don’t put any infantry out, you have no reconnaissance, you’ve basically taken the tactical decision they you are setting yourself up to move as quickly as possible, ie, like a civilian driving down the motorway at 70mph. It’s a tactical decision that makes sense if you expect your enemy to be disorganized (think later stages of the Iraq invasion) or just not to be resisting. The Russians absolutely could have done a… Read more »
part of the reason they did so bad is most of the soldiers thought they were on a training exercise as putin had kept saying ‘we aren’t invading ukraine, that is just american propaganda!’- right up until he did it. lots of the russians captured on that first day were confused as hell. i remember a video of a tank crew that got lost and were asking civilians for directions and didn’t believe they weren’t in belarus anymore. contrast that to the invasion of iraq when everyone knew what was going to happen and prepared for it. i imagine if… Read more »
How about replenishing Storm Shadow? Surely the tooling still exists.
That is being done – re-manufacture and replenish.
Both sides of the channel from what I hear.
Fingers crossed, I think we could do with more of every thing…