The ‘Select Precision Effects At Range Capability 3’ (SPEAR 3) is an air-to-ground, anti-tank, anti-structure and anti-ship missile.

SPEAR Cap 3 is characterised by the MoD as a capability “focused on the enduring requirement to engage mobile and fixed targets in hostile and complex environments”.

The missile takes the shape of a medium-range (around 120km), mini-cruise missile designed for internal carriage by the F-35.

According to MBDA, the system is effective against:

• Air Defence Units, Ballistic Missile launchers
• Defended structures
• Fast moving and manoeuvring vehicles
• Main Battle Tanks, Self-Propelled Guns, Armoured Personnel Carriers
• Naval vessels

The design of SPEAR 3 takes into account the characteristics and internal weapon constraints of the F-35B, four missiles can be accommodated in each of the F-35Bs two internal weapon bays, making for a total of 8 missiles per aircraft.

Mid-course guidance will be performed using GPS or inertial navigation utilising a two-way datalink, this enables mid-course updates, re-targeting and mission abort functions.

The UK is looking to integrate SPEAR 3 as part of Block 4 software integration on the F-35. In May last year, the MoD awarded a £411 million contract to MBDA to that effect.

In March 2016, a SPEAR trials missile was launched from a Typhoon trial aircraft operated by BAE Systems at the QinetiQ Aberporth range in Wales.

The missile transitioned through separation from the Typhoon aircraft to powered flight before completing a series of manoeuvres, ending in a terminal dive to the desired point of impact. According to reports, the missile accurately followed the planned trajectory and was well within simulation predictions; all trial objectives were achieved.

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George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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Mr Bell
Mr Bell
6 years ago

All good but when will it actually be in service the raf and navy need this missile now to be able to sink enemy ships.

Scott
Scott
6 years ago
Reply to  Mr Bell

I have my doubts it will sink a ship. Row boat maybe.

The fact that they can fit 4 missiles in each bay of an F-35 (in the same space that a 1000lb GBU fits into), would tell you that the missile isn’t that big, likely about the size of a Hellfire or Brimstone, therefore doesn’t have the warhead to sink a ship.

Will it do damage to a ship? Certainly, but other than a light patrol ship maybe, this think isn’t going to be sinking any frigates or destroyers.

John Stevens
John Stevens
6 years ago

Yes, will be a handy missile to have in the inventory, couple of articles i have looked at said around the mid 2020’s (in-service date) perhaps somebody else has some extra info:

Steve
Steve
6 years ago

The question is how much bang it will have. If you look at the helicopter launched torpedoes in the Iraq war and it took multiple of them to take down patrol boats. To be useful the spear3 would need to be able to take on a warship of a corvette or above level.

Julian
Julian
6 years ago

Info re warhead is not in the public domain, at least that I could find, so I asked this question on another forum a while ago. The answer I got was that Brimstone is a 50kg missile with a 6kg warhead and Spear 3 is said to be in the 100kg range for total weight so that probably gives about a 15kg warhead. It’s not going to sink a frigate or probably even a corvette but, depending on what missiles you are talking about in the Iraq war (and I would be interested to know), if they were Hellfire sort… Read more »

John Pattullo
John Pattullo
6 years ago
Reply to  Julian

i’d agree that its unlikely to be effective alone – but if a single f-35 can unload 8 of them on a frigate – thats surely going do some damage

Julian
Julian
6 years ago
Reply to  John Pattullo

Good point, and such a salvo also increase the chances of saturating defences and getting some through, especially with multiple F-35s attacking a single target.

Steve
Steve
6 years ago
Reply to  Julian
Grubbie
Grubbie
6 years ago
Reply to  Steve

?

Julian
Julian
6 years ago

There’s some talk of it being adapted for vertical launch. If it could be fired from a CAMM (Sea Ceptor) soft launcher that would add a very useful extra capability to T26 and probably also T31 if that ever happens, in fact to anything that ended up with CAMM launchers which might even include carriers and/or other bigger vessels if MoD were ever to go that route to boost the self-protection capabilities of some of our non-escort vessels. I’m quite excited about Spear 3 anyway and adding a CAMM VLS launch option would have me jumping for joy for the… Read more »

Bob1986
Bob1986
6 years ago
Reply to  Julian

@ Julian: You state ”There’s some talk of it being adapted for vertical launch” where exactly did you get this information from may I ask? The reason for my question is that this information is quite specific (i.e. known to MBDA engineers that would have worked on this concept only) and not in the public domain.

Mike Saul
Mike Saul
6 years ago

I see that the new Israeli Corvette, Saar 6, based on the German K130 design is going to have the following weapon fit.

40 barak 8 SAMs plus 40

Mike Saul
Mike Saul
6 years ago

Let me continue 40 c dome missiles.

How many spear 3 missiles would it take to knock out a Saar 6 corvette given the effectiveness of such air defence systems?

Nick Harriss
Nick Harriss
6 years ago

While on the face of it a relative small missile evolved from an anti-tank weapon seems under-powered compared with the class of anti-ship missile: * Brimstone Sea Spear (assuming Spear 3 uses the same TSC warhead) – 16kg warhead * Sea Eagle (retired far too early) – 230kg warhead * Exocet – 165kg warhead * Harpoon – 221kg warhead However, in the same way that a Typhoon with a 500lb Paveway IV can be as effective as a Vulcan dropping 21 x 1,000lb iron bombs (on the bombing raids on the Falkland’s airfield, only 2 or 3 of 63 bombs… Read more »

John Stevens
John Stevens
6 years ago

Very interesting mix of comments from all..

joe
joe
6 years ago

The S-400 killer.

1 Lightning…. 8 x Spears, 100km range…… the pride of the Russian missile defence is annihilated.

Steve
Steve
6 years ago
Reply to  joe

This is assuming the S-400 doesn’t spot the f35 or the missile and shot them out of the sky.

joe
joe
6 years ago
Reply to  Steve

It would be a struggle against something with such a small RCS….

Best guestimate I’ve seen would put the F-35 at 35km detection range…. by then it would be game over.

Nick Bowman
Nick Bowman
6 years ago

So why is it important? Here’s why. The worst case scenario is a pressing need to sink a Kirov class battle cruiser. A Kirov carries 192 anti-aircraft missiles. 30 F35 sorties carrying 8 Spear 3 and the Kirov is non-functional. 8 x 30 = 240.

Steve
Steve
6 years ago
Reply to  Nick Bowman

This makes a few assumptions. 1. We have 30 F35s all maxed out with this weapons available and ready to launch or can be equipped fast enough once the Kirov is sighted 2. The Kirov is acting alone and not in a battle group 3. The Kirov is not able to shoot the F35’s out of the sky before they can launch. Saturation attacks are probably the best approach for taking down capital ships these days, but they do have their limitations, since the more missiles you carry, the smaller they have to be to fit in the room and… Read more »

Nick Bowman
Nick Bowman
6 years ago

No – each F35 could make multiple sorties. The key thing would be to fire more spear 3s than the Kirov has defensive missiles. I’m assuming that a) the Kirov is able to shoot down every spear 3 that it has a SAM for, b) the Kirov is not resupplied with SAMs while at sea, c) no other type of anti-ship missile or aircraft causes the Kirov to expend ordinance and d) the Kirov is not escorted. The point is that saturation attacks using small, slow, cheap anti-ship missiles would likely be effective. That’s important to know. It’s also worth… Read more »

Tim
Tim
6 years ago

How many 100kg missile types do we need? Sea Venom, CAMM (surface mode), SPEAR 3. Why not just use a CAMM varient? One that goes mach 1 instead of mach 3 so uses less fuel* and can therefore have a bigger warhead say 30kg instead of 10kg. Then we would have an AAW and an ASuW missile body already integrated into both aircraft and VLS systems. The overall program cost would be less than having 3 missile types which all get under utillisied because we don’t integrate all of them into all our launching platforms. * I’ve tried to find… Read more »

jay
jay
6 years ago

I think these are more about reducing a ships ability to fight than actually sinking them. It would surely take an insanely large number of these to actually sink an large surface combatant. As valuable as they might be, I foresee a problem with damage evaluation. How do you know the degree to which you have disabled a FREMM Frigate (for example) if you have hit it 6 times but it is still sailing under it’s own steam? It becomes a strategic problem you have to assume the worst; that it is not out of the fight. The only way… Read more »

Mbdb
Mbdb
6 years ago

Lots of v speculative comments on here. Good luck finding out fuel capacity for camm and any other current missile system for that matter. Let me know how that goes.

Alex
Alex
5 years ago

The problems to me appear twofold if we assume that in order to be effective a volley/saturation tactic is need; firstly the cost involved of launching so many missiles and second the amount of stores required to carry such a volume of lightweight weapons.

Can F35 B not carry anything with more punch? This way a combined attack of a volley of Spears to draw countermeasures away whilst an Exocet type weapon delivers the knockdown blow?