At the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) exhibition in London, held from 9 to 12 September 2025, MBDA officially presented the CROSSBOW One Way Effector Heavy, describing it as an affordable deep strike solution for NATO forces.
The system, which can deliver kinetic and non-kinetic payloads of up to 300kg at ranges beyond 800km, was developed in only seven months, moving from a paper design to demonstration readiness. A live-fire test is expected in the fourth quarter of 2025 if a customer backs the programme.
Ground-launched from the back of a vehicle, Crossbow has been designed to provide “combat mass” in high-intensity conflicts and complex electromagnetic environments. MBDA highlighted its modular design, which combines military and commercial off-the-shelf subsystems, enabling scalable production as early as the second quarter of 2026.
Eric Béranger, CEO of MBDA, said: “This project exemplifies the spirit and values of MBDA. It shows that we understand the context of the world today and are adapting, not just to the threat environment, but the procurement environment too. We are demonstrating we are ‘Battle Ready’ with our confidence in our understanding and anticipation of requirements. Our people are also showing their strengths through this project. Cooperation with partners, agile working with a rapid decision mind-set and a tolerance of risk. We are showing we can be different, in what are now different times.”
Crossbow was designed in parallel to the OWE concept launched at the Paris Air Show earlier this year. MBDA emphasises that its architecture supports spiral development in survivability, lethality and navigation, while allowing customers to configure production through domestic supply chains if desired.
Seems ideal for Project Brakestop.
I’m waiting for project Full Stop 😄
Couple of thousand of these to combine with the other cruise missile options.
2000km+is nice to have but probably not necessary in most cases 800km will do most jobs
The 2000km+ missile has a very specific purpose. It’s not a NATO first missile it’s a UK backstop of being able to hurt Russia directly and independently of any support from NATO as a direct deterrent against a strike on the UK..it’s essentially a hit us and we don’t need to enact article five before we can hit you back.
This looks like MBDAs answer to the UKs project brakestop, which is a NATO first programme and as you say a cheapish 600km range weapon with a a 300kg warhead is very useful in the deep battlefield.
If HMG do order it, which I doubt as they’re all words, who in the Army will operate it!?
I’d assume it is fired from a mobile vehicle of some kind, or trailer, in the field, which to me says Army.
And the RA is hardly overrun with RA Regiments, as we discussed on another thread.
Yes indeed, as you say we have already discussed the fact that if they have a DRSB in each division they will need 4 MRLS regiments and 4 155 regiments which is 4 more artillery regiments than they already have..
Although I’m not actually sure a 600km range weapon is really the armies bag as that is moving away from a tactical weapon.. maybe they will give it to the RAF regiment 🤐
Sorry 800km range..weapon
Exactly.
And the RAF Regiment is itself down to 6 Squadrons, all of which have FP roles aligned to parts of the force, or are now CUAS.
There are no answers, save expansion, which isnt happening.
This is why I’m always SO sceptical about all these grand programs from MoD/HMG.
Unlike many, I’m aware of the ORBAT In my head and ask the awkward questions as to the who is even going to use it?!
They don’t exist.
They were all cut.
So something else has to give way.
Only thing I’ve thought of, if this does end up Army, is doing something akin to what initially happened with EXACTOR ( Spike NLOS ) In the RA, when the 3 MLRS Batteries in 39 RA each had an Exactor troop added on top.
Yes the adding a troop to each MRLS battery could work, but I’m not completely sure how the kill chain would work with an 800km range weapon and the army, as that is transition into a strategic weapon not just a deep battle/deep strike weapon system. 800km range is strategic infrastructure attacks, not just rear echelon logistics hubs disruption and interdiction and attacks on national strategic infrastructure is in reality the RAFs job not the armies.
I’ve no idea either re kill chain.
I’m just imagining some poor brigade HQ in Latvia being asked to plan a strike on a munitions factory on the outskirts of Moscow, while fighting off a Russian tank division….😵💫😵💫😵💫
Agreed not at brigade level..! would this potentially be a role for 1 Division? If I have understood, 3 Div is our deployable war fighting division, and 1 Div provides specialist training units and other supporting and distributed roles.
I could see that expanding these days into a lot of what Ukraine’s GRU seems to do, which includes the long range strikes into key enemy enablers, major air defence nodes hundreds of miles from the front, that kind of thing. Leave 3 Div to do the big fighting, tie their ISR, plus whatever space-based and other stuff we have back to a special planning and actions command in 1 Div, and let them use these and other similar (longer ranged) weapons to hammer the stuff way back from the front line.
It’s still need some expansion, but maybe not at the scale or difficulty of trying to bolt additional capabilities onto the existing units within 3 Div..?
Not how 1 Division works, or at least not how it works anymore. 1 Division provides lighter forces that can be deployed out of area, but still does actual fighting.
It wouldn’t be a Brigade asset, or even a divisional asset, not if your striking Moscow. This kind of thing would fall under Joint Theatre Command, or at a very very lowest level Corps level fires.
You’re both right, the Army is currently not set up with a unit that provides this kind of capability, so generating it would probably require a new regiment (even if it was an RHQ with only one Battery under it’s command) that would report directly to CFA or StratCom.
Yep it would be a completely new role and the linking in around the kill chain would need some hard yards as well as decision making.. 800km is a long way, putting it well into the strategic realm, with a lot of strategic targets.. just the linking of ISTAR and target priority would be a challenge, then which asset makes the strike.. and RN strategic weapon, Army strategic asset weapon or RAF.
I’m not sure it’s something the army would even want to divert resources to.. a 200km range weapon for deep strike yep… 800km I’m not so sure… it’s why nations that have really focused on none nuclear strategic rocket/ missile forces and weapons tend to form a fourth arm just for that.. it’s the route the PLA went down after they hit a critical mass of land based long range rockets and missile.
Linking into the kill chain, target priority and ISTAR wouldn’t be difficult.
Just to quickly put some doctrine out here, for clarity and context (and we’ll use US Army doctrine as finding British Army Doctrine for Corps and above fires is hard, and, although I’m sure it exists is probably either very similar to US and NATO doctrine, or gathering dust in a BAOR locker somwhere) and so that we collectively have a better sense of Scale.
But yeah so, according to the US fires doctrine: The Divisional Deep/Corps Close’s rear boundary is about 60km from the FLOT. The next line beyond that is the FSCL (Fire Support Co-ordination Line), which is about 90km (give or take) beyond the FLOT. The FSCL is a soft boundary, and everything near side of it is supposed to be co-ordinated through the Land Component Commander, and everything on the far side of it is co-ordinated through the Air Component Commander. The idea is that if a target is the near side of the FSCL then most of the fires (but not all) will be land based and if the Target is on the Far side of the FSCL then the fires will mostly (but not entirely) air based. There’s then a variable distance, maybe another 100km until the end of the Corps Deep. Doctrine states that the distance from the Corps Rear to the far edge of the Corps Deep should be about 300km. Also between the Flot and Divisional Deeps rear boundary is the Brigade AO (which is about 30km deep very roughly but this varies) and the Div CFL (roughly 15km deep). Anything near side of the Div CFL needs an integrated fire plan to engage to avoid risk to own troops and allow for maneuver, anything beyond the CFL is free game effectively.
So a few Doctrinal take aways for us a community:
-Brigades shouldn’t need MLRS systems in their orbat for support. Unrelated to the current point I know, but it’s been mentioned a few times in orbat chats about 1 DSRB so it’s worth highlighting. GMLRS with a 50 mile range is firmly a divisional asset, hence why we’ve usually only had one Regiment of it. Divisional Commander use GMLRS (and in the US case AH-64s under Divisional Command, but the US views AH-64’s as Maneuver elements not Targeting so it’s complicated).
-ATACMS sits squarely in the role of Corps fire support, which is why the US tends to group it’s MLRS systems under a Corps commander, rather than as Divisional assets. But with a 300km range, even at the edge of the Corps rear it can outrange the FSCL, which means that even at Corps level establishing fire priority what asset is used to engage which target, air, land or navy, is already a thing (not Naval Gunfire Support is about 17-20miles in range so a lot of Naval Fire Support has to be fully integrated into FSP’s within the Div CFL).
-Anything beyond about 200km from the FLOT will sit above a Corps Commander. So, in terms of Crossbow: It will ideally sit a level or two above a Corps Commander. That might be a UK Theatre Commander (so for example Op Granby it might report directly to Commander BFME) or it might be a NATO 4* or above HQ (or American 4* HQ). But at any rate, when you get to that sort of HQ, it is by definition a Purple Organisation, and a Ground Launched Effector would pretty seamlessly be integrated into the kill chains that are already established for Sea and Air effectors.
Establishing an Army Crossbow unit wouldn’t be a big ask in terms of organising it once it got past CGS, FSL, CAS and possibly CSC having a budgetary bumfight over it. The bigger issue is that, like a lot of European Forces, we don’t deploy at the sort of scale that justifies the sort of HQ that really needs to co-ordinate fires that deep. Remember the deeper you go the wider the frontage you are supporting in that depth, so an HQ that is striking 800km deep is also an HQ that is in charge of something in the region of 9 Divisions. For comparison the last time anyone in NATO deployed a force like that was 1991, when 11 Allied divisions plus JFC East where deployed. So yeah, not really surprising that it’s not a huge priority for any European Army.
Das Poke for notification purposes.
Nice bit of information cheers
Good post above Dern, thank you.
You’ll know this better than I Daniele, but would this potentially be a role for 1 Division? If I have understood your previous explainers, 3 Div is our deployable war fighting division, and 1 Div provides specialist training units and other supporting and distributed roles.
I could see that expanding these days into a lot of what Ukraine’s GRU seems to do, which includes the long range strikes into key enemy enablers, major air defence nodes hundreds of miles from the front, that kind of thing. Leave 3 Div to do the big fighting, tie their ISR, plus whatever space-based and other stuff we have back to a special planning and actions command in 1 Div, and let them use these and other similar (longer ranged) weapons to hammer the stuff way back from the front line.
It’s still need some expansion, but maybe not at the scale or difficulty of trying to bolt additional capabilities onto the existing units within 3 Div..?
Hi Joe.
Not quite how I’d describe 1 Division, but I think I get where you’re going.
They support, but are becoming a full Division.
At least, a full Division in our terms, without quite a few Divisional assets.
Think of 3 Division as heavy and 1 Division light.
And even that may change as Boxer, hardly light, might end up in 1 Division.
The makeup keeps changing by the month it seems, but recently
1 Division has 7 Light Mech Bde,
4 Infantry Bde, 102 Logistics Bde,
and the 16 Air Assault Bde, so the Paras and other Airborne and Air Assault elements.
It is allocated to SACEUR as part of one of two Reserve Corps, the ARRC being one of those, with 1 and 3 Divisions and other bits.
With reported changes, 7 Bde and 4 Bde might both go Mechanized, with another DRSB added to mirror the set up of 3 Division.
It’s Brigades could disperse, as you describe it, as they are “first responders” like 16 Air Assault, and one of the two Mech Bdes, 7,4, is reportedly allocated to deploy next behind 16, before 3 Division and the heavier elements which takes longer with the logistical burden of heavier elements.
Your mention of “Specialist training units” could be attributed to 11 Brigade in its old SFA role. Security Force Assistance.
Modern day BATTs if you will.
British Army Training Teams.
They are no longer in 1 Division but part of the LSOF, Land Special Operations Force.
So think LSOF, forward and dispersed.
1 Division, elements to follow up.
3 Division, heaviest taking longer.
It’s more detailed than that, but I hope you get the jist and I’ve not gone off on tangents too much on how Brigades all fit together.
On Crossbow, I don’t see it as a 1 Division asset either.
I can visualise it as being part of the Deep Recc Strike Bdes myself, linking to strategic enablers like the ISTAR assets in Strategic Command to identify targets and pass on quickly to the field units, especially moving targets so nearer real time.
And even that might be wrong.
As J said, hitting Strategic targets in rear is really more an RAF task.
The RA have got plenty of Regiments – just haven’t got any guns ! On a more serious note this sort of kit could easily be manned by reserves as 101 Regt have already proven with MLRS.
Evening.
Yes, there are Regiments. I think one point I made may have got lost somewhere. Those Regiments all have a role supporting a Brigade, or a niche enabling units as is that cannot be dispensed with.
Who knows, maybe the AAC will take it! There is talk they want the UAV and Drones.
So unless Crossbow goes to a new Regiment and manpower is magically pulled out of a hat, a reserve Regiment take it like you say, or it is put in a Troop in the MLRS Regiments like Exactor then something else needs to go.
Quick snapshot of the regular RA.
Gun Regiments.
1 RHA, 19 RA.
155mm gun Regiments, with 14 Archer between them, I understand mostly in 19. I read 1 RHA in desperation has some Light Gun. Allocated to our 2 Armoured Bdes, 12,20.
4 RA, 29 Cdo RA, 7 Para RHA.
105mm Light Gun Regiments, some with as few as 2 x 6 gun Batteries. Allocated to 7 Bde, the UKCF, and 16 AA Bde. You’d hope 4 RA is uplifted to 155mm.
Rocket/Missile Regiments.
26RA, 3 RHA.
On GMLRS, 2 x Fire Batteries each I believe, expanding to 3 each. Allocated to 3 DRSB.
26 I believe now has its Exactor 2 assets in a single Battery.
GBAD Regiments.
16RA, 12RA. Both in pitiful state, short of actual kit for their component Batteries from accounts of posters like Ben on this forum who serves in that area. So how would they actually deploy as complete formations if the balloon went up?
UAV Regiments.
32 RA, 47RA. 47 From next year is literally twiddling its thumbs if Watchkeeper is not replaced pronto. 32 has the TUAS.
ISTAR.
5 RA. A vital unit, includes 4/73. The Regiment is hardly overflowing with assets, such as locating radar.
14 RA. The training Regiment as part of the RSA.
Yes. For me the RA is in a state. In the period up to 2010 it still had 6 Regiments of 155mm SPG alone. The RA may have Regiments, but what gives from this lot to take Crossbow?
It is all hot air for me from HMG anyway.
Thanks Daniele, that’s helpful- clearly not a good fit for 1 Div.
I think you noted elsewhere that AAC could be an option- would make an interesting proposal and complement to the AH-64E, especially if they get that unmanned pairing thing working. Could use a drone flying ahead of an AH-64E ahead of a ground launch position as a kill chain, although likely wouldn’t quite be making full use of the 800 km strike range at that point…
How far are these Deep Strike Recce units supposed to be Deep Striking to? I suppose, if their command elements are a ways behind their operational area, then having Crossbow there, ready to launch on requirement would make sense- although not as a time-sensitive fire support solution at those distances.
I take your point about the RAF. But they’ve never really seemed all that interested in this kind of thing, have they?
I’m beginning to see why these kinds of missions are done by Ukraine’s SBU- Intelligence/ SF; they don’t necessarily fit into any of the regular branches without some careful re-jigging and re-definition of their mission set.
Hi Joe.
Well the RAF was once very interested in that kind of thing, until HMG took their assets away!
Most of RAFG was composed of Strike and Interdiction Sqns, with Tornado GR1, GR4, and that continued until the 7 Sqns retained post Cold War and into the 2000s were whittled down to 3 by endless cuts.
And then cut altogether, throwing the role over to Typhoon as it is “multi role”
A fine excuse for cuts.
On DRSB depths of fire, I’ve no idea.
But I see Dern has posted a long one further up, which I’m now about to read!
Cheers mate.
Thanks for the pointer, on my way to look for that too!
Duncan Sandys 2.0
Well there we have it the first offering for project brakestop, pretty impressive getting an offer ready within 1 year and even exceeded the 600km requirement
So brakestop asked for…
Range: >500 km
Payload: 200-300 kg (Mk 82 bomb sized payload)
Speed: Approximately 600 km/h
Launch: Ground-launched from a mobile platform
Cost: Target cost of £400,000 per delivery platform (excluding VAT)
Guidance: Operable in GPS-denied environments, resistant to EW attacks
Scalability: Minimum production rate of 20 units per month
If the UK government does order this I will even start to have faith in the Anglo German 2500km Moscow express and the let’s build a future tactical nuclear weapon without telling everyone what it really is project Nightfall ( although really if you were looking to be getting a tactical nuclear ballistic missile you could not pick a more sinister and obvious name for the project).
Waste it money it doesn’t work as advertised unless we are going against non peer states, which is pretty low bar now.
Here’s an idea, let Russia join NATO as it has asked at least four times historically.
Then NATO can bomb Ukraine to break it up and steal it’s stuff