Kongsberg Defence Systems has entered into a contract with the Australian Department of Defence for integration of a new capability in the Joint Strike Missile.
This contract is a result of the agreement reached between the Norwegian and Australian Governments initialised during a visit by Norwegian State Secretary of Defence, Øystein Bø to Australia in 2015.
According to the company, JSM is a 5th generation long-range precision strike missile that will be integrated for internal carriage on the F-35.
“Using a combination of advanced materials, ability to fly low, while following the terrain and using advanced passive seekers, the missile is extremely difficult to detect and stop even for the most advanced countermeasures and defence systems.
The unique state-of-the-art RF-seeker sensor, developed by BAE Systems Australia, will enable JSM to locate targets on the basis of their electronic signature. This will further strengthen the capabilities of JSM for the most challenging scenarios in a modern battlefield.”
Eirik Lie, President of Kongsberg Defence Systems said:
“We are very pleased that Australia joins the development of JSM by funding the integration of the RF seeker and that we together can increase the JSM capabilities.”
So, an anti-radar role on top of the anti-ship role as well as a limited land attack role…..
Terrific, hopefully they will see results soon.
According to Wiki the missile has a range of between 185-500+kms depending on the flight profile used.
Either way, any & every enemy SAM system would struggle to survive it.
Alas though they cannot fit inside the F-35B
Smart move, presumably to be followed by the sensible UK.
Grief that is a capable weapons system. Can the uk buy it now and get the lack of anti ship missiles sorted out. If we could equip or tornado, typhoon and the f35b with this weapon that would be great. Any money spreadsheet Phill for national defence??? Or are we going to keep spending £13 billion on foreign aid whilst defence goes lacking, social care is in turmoil and key public sector staff have had BELOW inflation pay rises since 2008. Most public sector staff (armed forces, NHS, teachers) are 14-16% worse off in real terms now compared to 2008.
1% pay rise vs 7% for MPs that is hardly fair or leading by example.
To show what can be done with $125 million, there’s the Skjold-class corvette – carrying 8 of the shorter range (100 nm) NSM. Wrap around a mothership capable of carrying a couple with a bit of imagination, and that’s the sort of thing even the RN should be looking at.