Free Republic

Royal Navy warships will be left without anti-ship missiles and be forced to rely on naval guns because of cost-cutting, the Ministry of Defence has admitted. The Navy’s Harpoon missiles will retire from the fleet’s frigates and destroyers in 2018 without a replacement, while there will also be a two year gap without helicopter-launched anti-shipping missiles. Naval sources said the decision was “like Nelson deciding to get rid of his cannons and go back to muskets” and one senior former officer said warships would "no longer be able to go toe-to-toe with the Chinese or Russians". Harpoon missiles are unlikely...

China's largest missile-maker is promoting what it calls "the world's best anti-ship missile" for sales in the international market. China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, one of the main defense equipment suppliers in the nation, is marketing its CM-302 supersonic anti-ship cruise missile to nations hoping to improve their naval capabilities. CM-302 is the best anti-ship missile available on the world's arms market and "it's not an exaggeration", said Lyu Xiaoge, spokesman for the State-owned defense technology giant, who spoke to China Daily on the sidelines of the 2016 Zhuhai Airshow. The justification for the statement is that the missile...

Helibras opened the doors of its plant on Tuesday, 25, 2016 and performed a flight demonstration of the first armed H225M of the Brazilian Navy. It is the most complex helicopter being produced and developed by the company's Engineering Center within the H-XBR program. Brazil Navy H225M Exocet 1First flight of the Brazilian Navy H225M helicopter fitted with Exocet anti-ship missiles. Picture: Helibras The BRA-05 prototype is fitted with the Naval Mission Tactical System, developed by Helibras especially for Navy missions, APS-143 maritime patrol radar, Chaff & Flare decoy launchers and intelligence system with two MBDA Exocet AM39 Block II...

Against the backdrop of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military modernization and growing precision strike capabilities, some media reports indicate that Taipei may have plans to produce 10 to 60 Hsiung Feng III (HF-3; 雄風三型, “Brave Wind III”) supersonic missiles with a range above 162 nautical miles under projects codenamed “God’s Spear” (神戈計劃) and “Coiled Dragon” (蟠龍計畫), respectively. According to the media, an “HF-3 extended range model missile” (雄三增程型飛彈) project may be in the works and a testing phase is slated for completion by the middle of 2017, to enter mass production in 2018. The missiles could be deployed in...

Russia is finalizing the trials of a sophisticated cruise missile designated as Kh-32 and intended to equip the Tupolev Tu-22M3 supersonic long-range bomber fleet, according to the Izvestia daily. The cutting-edge missile is virtually invulnerable to ground-based air defenses and interceptors of a potential adversary. Once launched, the product of the Raduga Design Bureau climbs to an altitude of 40 km, to the stratosphere, to dive on the target at a steep angle. Picture by Mikhail Polyakov, http://russianplanes.net A source in Russia’s defense industry has confirmed that the Kh-32 missile’s tests were in final stages, and the weapon itself was...

Japan's decision to develop surface-to-sea missiles with a range of 300 kilometers to cover the disputed islands shows the country may be eyeing a shift to an offensive posture, analysts said. The Japanese government has decided to develop the missiles to "protect the nation's isolated islands," including the disputed Diaoyu Islands, the Yomiuri newspaper reported. Development costs will be part of the Defense Ministry's budget request for the fiscal year ending March 2018, and the weapons are set to be deployed on islands, such as Miyako, in Japan's southernmost Okinawa prefecture by 2023. "Japan is trying to use the missile...

<p>TAIPEI, TAIWAN: A Taiwanese warship mistakenly launched a supersonic "aircraft carrier killer" missile towards China on Friday, the navy said, as ties between the island and its once bitter rival deteriorate.</p> <p>The domestically developed Hsiung-feng III (Brave Wind) missile, with a range of 300 kilometres (around 200 miles), flew about 75 kilometres before plunging into waters off Penghu, a Taiwanese-administered island group in the Taiwan Strait.</p>

Boeing’s Harpoon Missile System is an all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship weapon that is extremely versatile. The U.S. started developing the Harpoon in 1965 to target surfaced submarines up to 24 miles away, hence its name “Harpoon,” a weapon to kill “whales,” a naval slang term used to describe submarines. It was a slow moving project at first until the Six-Day War of 1967 between Israel and Egypt. During the war, Egypt sunk the Israel destroyer INS Eilat from 14 miles away with Soviet-made Styx anti-ship missiles launched from a tiny patrol boat. It was the first ship in history to be...

The German Navy (Marine) has authorized on 3 June 2016 the use of the surface-to-surface Saab RBS-15 Mk3 missiles aboard the Braunschweig class (K-130) corvette. This type of missiles will give the Marine the capability to engage land targets from the sea. German Navy Braunschweig class corvettes (K130) The RBS-15 Mk3 was selected in 2004 through an international tender; with the other two contenders being Kongsberg’s Naval Strike Missile and Boeing’s Harpoon Block II missiles. However, following technical delays and two failed fire-tests in 2013, the missiles were successfully fire-tested in 2015. The German Navy is the second one, after...

Lockheed Martin is developing a new deck-mounted launcher for the emerging Long Range Anti-Ship Missile engineered to semi-autonomously track and destroy enemy targets at long ranges from both aircraft and surface ships. The weapon, called the LRASM, is a collaborative effort between Lockheed, the Office of Naval Research and the Defense Advanced Project Research Agency, or DARPA. The LRASM, which is 168-inches long and 2,500 pounds, is currently configured to fire from an Air Force B-1B bomber and Navy F-18 carrier-launched fighter. The current plan is to have the weapon operational on board an Air Force B-1B bomber by 2018...

The US Navy will wrap up developmental free flight testing of the datalink-equipped Boeing Harpoon Block II+ sea-skimming, anti-ship missile next week, ahead of fielding on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet sometime between June and August of 2017. The latest variant of the 45-year-old Harpoon weapon type expands on the satellite-aided navigation system introduced in Block II by adding a datalink radio ported across from the C-1 variant of Raytheon's AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) for in-flight retargeting against enemy surface vessels in cluttered coastal regions. The Harpoon missile successfully struck its first ship target during a test in December 1971,...

The Littoral Combat Ship program is poised to make big strides this year in its strike capability, both with over-the-horizon missiles and the shorter-range Longbow Hellfire missile. The Independence-variant USS Coronado (LCS-4) will deploy later this year with the Boeing-built Harpoon anti-ship missile, and engineering is underway to outfit USS Freedom (LCS-1) with the Naval Strike Missile (NSM), a partnership between Kongsberg Defence Systems and Raytheon. Program Executive Officer for Littoral Combat Ships Rear Adm. Brian Antonio told USNI News in a May 2 interview that the Harpoon system will be installed on Coronado within the next month, in time...

Recent images from China are showing two People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Project 956E Sovremennyy destroyers undergoing major refit and upgrade. It appears that the PLAN is upgrading its class of four destroyers (two 956E followed by two improved 956EM) acquired from Russia with domestic systems. Hangzhou (136) and Fuzhou (137) moored at the PLAN naval shipyard 4806 in Zhoushan. Hangzhou has many of its systems removed including the main gun, sensor and masts, missile launchers (both SAM and ASM). The pictures show first ship of the class Hangzhou (136) and Fuzhou (137) moored at the PLAN naval shipyard 4806...

For the first time in its history the Royal Canadian Navy has successfully fired a ship-based precision missile at a target on land. The frigate HMCS Vancouver fired the missile last week off the coast of California during a joint training exercise with the U.S. navy. The Harpoon Block II missile is an improved version of the anti-ship missile carried by Canadian frigates for decades. Before the upgraded weapons system was installed, the only way for a frigate to attack a target on land was to use its 57-mm main gun, which has a range of only 17 kilometres, compared...

Israel’s Navy conducted a successful test firing of surface-surface missiles from a Saar 5 corvette. The test included the launch of missile RGM-84 Harpoon and a new weapon, assumed to be an indigenous surface-to-surface missile developed for the Israel Navy by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). The blurred images shown on this video depict a missile longer and faster than the Harpoon, possibly driven by ram-air propulsion to achieve supersonic cruise and extended range. IAI has been known to continue the development of surface-to-surface missiles beyond Gabriel 3, the latest variant of the Gabriel family that entered service in the early...

The former frigate USS Reuben James (FFG-57) was sunk in January during a test of the Navy’s new anti-surface warfare (ASuW) variant of the Raytheon Standard Missile 6 (SM-6), company officials told USNI News on Monday. The adaptation of the SM-6 was fired from guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG-32) and hit James during the Jan. 18 test at the U.S. Pacific Missile Range Facility off the coast of Hawaii, a Raytheon spokeswoman told USNI News. “The test was a demonstration of the U.S. Navy’s concept of ‘distributed lethality,’ employing ships in dispersed formations to increase the offensive...

In the next decade, U.S. ships and submarines capable of firing Tomahawk cruise missiles will likely be fitted with a variant specifically designed to hit enemy ships up to 1,000 miles away, according to a report published in the U.S. Naval Institute News. Vice Adm. Joseph Mulloy, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources told USNI News Wednesday that surface ships would receive the upgraded missiles first, followed by submarines. The move follows the Navy’s upcoming $434 million budget request that would modify a portion of the current stock of Tomahawks with the ability to strike...

In an apparent move to show how serious the Pentagon is about countering conventional threats such as Russia and China, Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter announced Wednesday that the U.S. Navy would get a new ship-killing missile. The SM-6 is a vertically launched system fired from the deck of destroyers and cruisers. The missile was designed and fielded to intercept ballistic missiles in flight while they are passing through the upper atmosphere, but now, with Carter’s announcement, the SM-6 will be upgraded to defeat enemy ships. “It makes the SM-6 basically a twofer,” said Carter to an audience of...

The Navy is investigating adding an anti-ship missile to its submarine force — bringing it inline with the majority of the world naval submarines, the director of Naval Reactors said on Wednesday. In response to a question from the audience at the 2015 Naval Submarine League Symposium, Adm. Frank Caldwell said the Navy was exploring adding the capability to the fleet. “For this audience, I’ll tell you we are considering that and we are taking some some steps to delivering that kind of capability to our submarine force and I can’t really say anymore than that,” he said. The U.S....

Military authorities here worry about intelligence reports that North Korea is developing a new ground-to-ship ballistic missile with a range of 300 km which would be impossible to intercept with current weapons. "The North is developing a new ground-to-ship ballistic missile with a range of 200-300 km, an improved version of the KN-02 ground-to-ground ballistic missile," whose range is 140 km, a military source said Friday. "We're trying to verify the report." The North already has surface-to-ship cruise missiles like the KN-01 with a range of 160 km and the Silkworm missile with a range of 100 km. But ballistic...