Thales is now building Lightweight Multirole Missiles at its Belfast site at four times the rate it managed in 2022, and has committed £100 million to expanding that capacity further, the company told the UK Defence Journal after the Prime Minister announced accelerated deliveries of the weapon to Ukraine.
Phil Siveter, chief executive of Thales in the UK, said: “We are proud that the Prime Minister continues to see Thales in the UK as a trusted partner of the UK Government. Our Lightweight Multirole Missiles are designed and built at our site in Belfast, which has been supplying complex weapons to the UK for more than 70 years. With the support from Government, we have been able to quadruple our production to meet the global demand, and we are committed to investing £100m to expand this capacity further.
“The work carried out in Northern Ireland helps to sustain 1,100 direct jobs and supports around 700 more across our UK supply chain, giving the UK a sovereign capability it can rely on when it matters.”
Andy Burnham hosted Volodymyr Zelensky in Downing Street on Wednesday, pledging faster deliveries of air defence missiles alongside further military aid and tighter sanctions on Russia, with Britain pressing international partners to restrict Russian liquefied natural gas exports and to lean harder on Moscow over its attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
The Prime Minister said: “Our rock-solid support to Ukraine is vital for keeping us safe here in the UK and ensuring those on the frontlines have the equipment they need to push back Russia.”
All of that rests on a single production line in Belfast, a site that has built complex weapons for Britain for more than seventy years, through Shorts and then Thales, and it is the home of the Starstreak family from which LMM descends. Starstreak and LMM share the launcher and much of the surrounding equipment, which is part of why the line has been able to grow quickly.
LMM is a laser beam riding missile weighing around thirteen kilograms, with a range of about six kilometres. It is fired from shoulder launchers, from lightweight multiple launchers on vehicles, and from the Royal Navy’s Wildcat helicopters, where it carries the name Martlet. Against drones it is substantially cheaper than the surface to air missiles that would otherwise be expended on them, which is the characteristic that has driven demand since 2022.
The Belfast expansion is the kind of industrial response the Strategic Defence Review and the Defence Investment Plan have both called for, with onshore capacity that can be surged when a war consumes stock faster than peacetime contracts replace it.
This is good news and a sign of what can be achieved, although it has taken 4 years for that growth in production to occur. Some of that ‘delay’ might be down to political reluctance to provide Ukraine with complex weapons in quantity in the early stages of the war.
However, the big weakness highlighted above is that there is only one production line which is undoubtedly a High Value Target (HVT) and as such an obvious objective some sort of attack, perhaps using proxies rather than missiles launched from naval assets.
We need more air defences, sufficient to protect key assets such as this Thales factory and the H&W shipyard as well as diversified production capacity.
Cheers CR
If the army Wilcats are going out of service in favour of drones would it be of any help to Kyiv we fitted them with Martlet and gifted them to Ukraine?
It’s quite frustrating that the uk has some of if not the best air defence missiles in the world at short to medium range with star-streak and CAMM but nothing beyond that. It’s criminal that we didn’t join EUROSAM back in the day and get SAMP/T when the navy was procuring Sea Viper.
British army procurement is a joke and it doesn’t even seem to care that it has no ability to intercept even short range ballistic missiles which means on a modern battlefield it’s all but useless against even a moderate opponent unless someone else provides ABM for them. Yet still it has £6 billion for Ajax and £1.5 billion for 14 chinooks (yes I know they are operated by the RAF)
It should still be possible to procure Aster SAMP/T, if the missile is the same then inventory can be shared with the RN. With the additional SkySabre units being purchased why can’t they make that system handle CAMM-MR and Aster or get the Aster system to handle CAMM/CAMM-MR? Also we don’t seem to see any images of the MANN 4×4 trucks that I swear had a raisable 2×6 CAMM load on the back which if a few were linked with the main fire unit would be a terrific force multiplier and very mobile. SkySabre and other Shorad can’t just be for the Army. The Rapid Sentry could be adaptable for the RN as a x3/4/8/12 launcher. Similarly to what the French do with their Mistral.
I believe Sky Sabre can handle CAMM-MR, although it’s still in the development phase with Poland. Admittedly the UK has no orders in and it’s initially Poland with the greater interest it seems.
I suspect the UK doesn’t want to buy into the SAMP/T radar or the expensive Aster missiles. Sky Sabre + CAMM-MR could be the UK preference.
CAMM MR can’t intercept ballistic missiles though which is our main missing capability.
Ah, why ever not; will not Poland be requiring precisely that – that it can intercept SRBM ?
FFS Jim, how many times. That layer of air defence is the responsibility of the RAF. The Army is literally only responsible for SHORAD of the deployed force. Their procurement of sky sabre, if anything exceeds what they are absolutely responsible for.
Suggest you go and read the 2021 defence review. All GBAD was placed under the army.
Where do you get the RAF responsibility from?
Please look up how they define GBAD – it’s short range air defence of the deployed force.
I can’t find any such definition in the 2021 defence review, what page is it on?
How is the army planning to defend the deployed force from ballistic missiles (which was actually my point)
😆
I recalled that conversation when I read this!
With all this production going on is the UK stocking up too? Any news on additional Shorad mounts, the Stormer replacement, more RapidSentry, even a navalised version of the later? The French seem to have a very diverse range of mounts for their Mistral equivalent from Sinbad, Sandral to the recent Rampart system, so wondering why the UK doesn’t do somethimg similar? It’d be more compact than a CAMM set-up and complement 30/40mm, Phalanx’s on the RFAs, OPVs, Carriers and others.
The UK replaced stormer with rapid ranger as an interim solution. No details beyond that and only 12 acquired so far as we know. That being said we didn’t know rapidly sentry even existed until it showed up in the gulf and the RN now appears to have deployed an entirely new secret anti drones system in T45.
Much as it seems to piss off the comments section of UKDJ, HMG doesn’t seem keen to release any details about its short range air defence and anti drone capabilities for very good reason.
12 is bugger all and just a stupid quantity. Why not double that if its cheap and useful? There’s got to be more than 12 airfields / bases that could need it. I don’t know but you’d think 2-3 units min per base? And the UK Terrahawk 30mm unit, why nothing on that? If the 30mm ever becomes surplus from the RN could they be reworked for VSHORAD?
Did they?
It was speculated.
There were photos of the CGS touring the plant and viewing the vehicles, but never seen any evidence that they actually went through with it.
CGS at that time also claimed that SHORAD was “to triple”
We’re still waiting. The rumoured 3rd GBAD Regiment hasn’t appeared out the magic hat and the knackered 30 odd Stormer are still hanging on, with their replacements delayed as there isn’t the money.
Pathetic.
As a comparison, till it was all massacred in the early 2000s, there were over a hundred Stormer in 2 Regiments, 12RA and 47RA, totalling 6 Batteries. Each with 3 Troops.
A Battery per Brigade, Troop per Battlegroup.
A Regiment each for the two Divisions, 1 and 3.
THAT is the sort of SHORAD coverage we need to get back to, given that the threats with Drones are now arguably worse.
As far as I know we bought 12 rapid rangers to replace stormer and they are active now.
Hmmm.
They were to temporarily augment and replace the ones we gave UKR, that was the original plan.
Any written reports or photos in use, I’d like to see them, by my understanding it never progressed.
Thanks mate.
Sorry, I have no hard evidence they have been delivered yet.
I don’t believe they have been delivered yet.
LMM is reportedly excellent at intercepting Jet Shaheds. Ukraine needs more LLM urgently, because their own (Ukrainian produced) jet drone interceptors use military Starlink, which Trump just restricted Ukraine’s access to. Elon Musk says it’s a US military system, so it’s out of his hands – regular Starlink is working.
If there were any remaining doubts that Trump is working directly for Putin, that must now be gone.
It’s quite shocking, I suspect it’s been done by Pete Hegseth again this time.
Just shows how import it is the UK make the most of One Web and its version 2 satellites military payload capacity. Seems Star Shield is probably hosting some form of infrared missile tracking payload and it’s this data that was cut off from Ukraine.
The US is so far blaming the weather but no way Musk makes that tweet today unless the US government ordered it shut off.
The UK along with its CANZUK and ENATO partners needs to deploy an infrared satellite missile tracking capability very soon. It’s probably the only US capability that we don’t have a plan in place to replace at present.
French company living off UK tax payers money. Time to hand it over to the UK state of a UK defence company. We must be owning and building this ourselves. How much does the french government buy from BAE and other UK defence companies? Not much if anything I suspect. Always 1 way like usual.
One web is a British company with a French parent company that in turn is owned by the British and French governments and Indian and Chinese telecommunications company.
But the uk retains a golden share and exclusive military application to one web.
He’s talking about Thales numbnuts.