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.
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.
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).