Page 48 - Australian Defence Magazine April-May 2021

48 SEA POWER MISSILES
APRIL-MAY 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
system for the Littoral Combat Ship and FFG(X) Constel- lation-class Future Frigate, leaving the field to the Kongs- berg/Raytheon Naval Strike Missile (NSM).
Formally confirmed in that role in 2018, the following year the NSM was selected by the US Marine Corps against competition from the LRASM and Harpoon for its Ground- based Anti-Ship Missile (GBASM) programme.
ing out the weapon is fired from four-missile deck-mounted launchers and does not require precious VLS cells, has a similar footprint to Harpoon with less weight, and can be deployed with minimal physical changes to host vessels.
This attribute would also make NSM highly suited for de- ployment on the RAN’s future Arafura-class Offshore Pa- trol Vessels which have space for two four-missile launch- ers, Kongsberg points out.
The company’s NSM-based Coastal Defence System, al- ready in service with the Polish Navy and selected by Ro- mania, is also seen by Kongsberg as a candidate for Army’s Land-Based Maritime Strike Requirement. The missiles used for coastal defence and ships are interchangeable.
In addition to its US success, NSM has also been selected as a Harpoon replacement by Norway, Germany, and Ma- laysia, with Canada recently choosing NSM in place of Har- poon for its next-generation frigate based, as is Australia’s Hunter-class, on the UK’s Type 26 Global Combat Ship.
Developed from the NSM, Kongsberg’s air-launched Joint Strike Missile (JSM) is the only maritime anti-ship (and land-strike) weapon that can be carried internally by the F- 35A, two of the missiles fitting in the aircraft’s weapons bay.
Australian-Norwegian collaboration on the JSM pro- gram was formalised in 2015, foreshadowing the poten- tial benefits of commonality between the air-launched
“KONGSBERG DEFENCE AUSTRALIA BELIVES THAT NSM WOULD BE A NATURAL REPLACEMENT FOR HARPOON.”
Described by Kongsberg as the only 5th-generation surface- to-surface guided weapon mis- sile in service today, the $3.96 million NSM carries a 125 ki- logram HE fragmentation war- head over more than 250km at sea-skimming altitude and includes terrain-following capa- bility for land attack.
Rather than radar, the missile uses a dual band passive imaging infrared seeker with autonomous target recogni- tion to detect and attack its target, meaning there are no emissions to lock on to during terminal phase evasive ma- noeuvres, and it’s not susceptible to electronic jamming.
Kongsberg Defence Australia believes the proven NSM would be a natural replacement for Harpoon on the An- zacs, the Hobart DDGs and the future Hunter class, point-