A Wildcat helicopter of 815 Naval Air Squadron has successfully detected, tracked, and engaged a Banshee drone using a Martlet missile during recent trials.
815 NAS highlighted the achievement in a tweet, marking a major step forward in the Wildcat helicopter’s capabilities.
Wildcat cleared hot!
A crew from 815 NAS have independently detected, tracked and engaged a Banshee drone with a Martlet missile during trials, a milestone for Wildcat maritime strike 💥 #StrikeDeep #FlyNavy #FleetAirArm #Wildcat #RoyalNavy pic.twitter.com/lTdw0HDvWY
— 815 Naval Air Squadron (@815NAS) October 11, 2024
This demonstration of the Wildcat’s ability to operate independently in detecting and neutralising aerial threats underlines its role as a key asset in the Royal Navy’s arsenal.
The Martlet, also known as the Lightweight Multirole Missile (LMM), is a versatile, laser-guided missile developed by Thales Air Defence for the United Kingdom. Designed for air-to-surface, air-to-air, surface-to-air, and surface-to-surface roles, the missile is named after a mythical bird from English heraldry that never roosts.
The Martlet was developed to meet the UK’s need for a “Future Air-to-Surface Guided Weapon (Light),” intended to equip the Royal Navy’s AW159 Wildcat helicopters and complement the heavier Sea Venom missile, particularly for targeting smaller and more manoeuvrable naval craft.
Originally derived from the Starburst surface-to-air missile, the Martlet has evolved to serve in multiple roles and on various platforms, such as the Schiebel Camcopter S-100 and BAE Fury. A special glide variant of the missile, known as the FreeFall LMM (FFLMM) or Fury, is being developed for use with drones and is planned to equip the British Army’s GMLRS-ER and Precision Strike Missile (PrSM). The missile is highly adaptable, featuring multiple guidance systems and a solid two-stage propellant, with a range of up to 8 km and speeds exceeding Mach 1.5.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) initially placed an order for 1,000 Martlet missiles in 2013, though delays meant that the missile only achieved its initial operating capability in 2021. The Royal Navy is projected to reach full operating capability with the Martlet by 2025, and it has already seen use in conflicts such as the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Looks good. A good addition to the RN’s arsenal. However I would have liked to see a fire and forget weapon. The platform has to continuously laze the target to impact. This means it cannot evade while engaging. Also it can only shoot one target at a time. These limitations could endanger the platform. I would have liked to see an EO guided version that you can just shoot and scoot. I am surprised that this was not done.
The limitations are also a great strength, the cost of this missile is what makes it truly fantastic. In the dawn age of ‘cheap’ (under 100k denoting cheap here) one way munitions and strike drones having a missile in inventory that can match or even be under the value of said threats will be extremely useful. If a Wild Cat is defending a vessel of group of vessels against a wave of surface or areal drones the chances are they will be way out of the range of any SAM or ECM equipment that may pose a threat to them,… Read more »
Makes sense to me you need a flexible ‘journeyman’ missile that is capable of doing what you want in most scenarios it finds itself in and at reasonable cost. You don’t need overkill and this missile seems to be a jack of all trades. A few points/questions. The Fury derivative glide vehicle seems to suggest it can be guided to a target’s coordinates and multiple targets engaged, but I had to look it up as I hadn’t heard of it which seems strange as it seems to have completed trials in 2017. As for the confusingly name Fury drone, is… Read more »
Fury was the name of the Thales FFLMM (Free Flight LMM) when marketed by Textron at the US market unsuccessfully. Essentially it was components from LMM and other projects in a gliding munition with larger wings. Fury uses SAL rather than beam riding laser guidance. FFLMM has made a re-appearance recently for the LRAE trials of a GMLRS-ER deployed payload alongside the Outrider UAS. In this application it appears to be using the Lo-Cost Seeker that Thales have proposed for LMM. Presumably this is an E/O or IIR seeker head, but there is little information on it anywhere. In order… Read more »
Whilst its good to have additional capability from a weapon, in real world situation how useful is this, as helicopters are not up 24/7 to provide air defence and unless the attacking drone is very slow launching a helicopter would take too much time.
I guess maybe for providing a marine ground offensive with top cover it could be useful
Take a T23 as an example. The radar has a range well in excess of 100miles (obviously less for low altitude.) An Iranian moped drone does 150mph so you should get at least 45 mins notice of a raid if not more from your own radar and other “assets”. A Helo can be at Alert 45 stowed in the hangar and takes 45 mins to launch (I’ve helped get Lynx out, armed with 4.5 inch recce flares and ready to go on SAR shouts in way less by the way and that was in the middle of the night) It… Read more »
Didn’t the French shoot one of their drones down with a side door 50 cal?
It’s definitely one of the standard methods for helicopters attacking drones now.
Maybe they should then be looking at buying the 25mm gun pods for the F35Bs then?
They did, but if you’ve seen video of it it was rather close for comfort, which is one of the issues with engaging with MG’s from a flexible mount. Not sure I’d want to detonate a Shahed 136’s 50kg warhead (some of which have multi-directional EFP’s) with an MG that close to a helo….
That is cutting it close though, doesn’t leave much room for error.
Is the LMM the same missile proposed for Shorad along with HVM Starstreak? They could potentially do a Tamir type stretched ER version for a UK Iron Dome type launcher which might be good for base, facilities, port defence, even a ship based version as a cheaper alternative to the more expensive CAMM/Aster missiles.
That or CAMM-SR, though?
The Great Debate!
thats a pretty good WVR air to air capability, especially considering martlet is a air to ground missile as well, designed to kill small surface targets..It one shot hit destroying a small ( 10 by 8 feet ) drone probability traveling at up to 400mph at around the five kilometre range. With an engagement time of not much more that 15 seconds, Also considering a wildcat can carry 20 martlet this means A navel wildcats ability to destroy at range an air or surface autonomous drone swarm is pretty significant.