The Naval Strike Missile (NSM) is an anti-ship and land-attack missile developed by the Norwegian company Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA). The NSM is a very flexible system, which can be launched from a variety of platforms against a variety of targets on sea and land. The missile is completely passive, has proven its excellent sea-skimming capabilities and with its advanced terminal manoeuvres, it will survive the enemy air defences. The original Norwegian name was Nytt sjømålsmissil (literally New sea target missile, indicating that it is the successor of the Penguin missile); the English marketing name Naval Strike Missile was adopted later.
The state-of-the-art design and use of composite materials is meant to give the missile sophisticated stealth capabilities. The missile will weigh slightly more than 400 kg (880 lb) and have a range of more than 185 km (100 nm). NSM is designed for littoral waters (“brown water”) as well as for open sea (“green and blue water”) scenarios. The usage of a high strength titanium alloy blast/fragmentation warhead from TDW is in line with the modern lightweight design and features insensitive high-explosive. Warhead initiation is by a void-sensing Programmable Intelligent Multi-Purpose Fuze designed to optimise effect against hard targets. In 2016, it was confirmed by the Royal Norwegian Navy that NSM also can attack land targets.
Like its Penguin predecessor, NSM is able to fly over and around landmasses, travel in sea skim mode, and then make random manoeuvres in the terminal phase, making it harder to stop by enemy countermeasures. While the Penguin is a yaw-to-turn missile, NSM is based on bank-to-turn flight. The target selection technology provides NSM with a capacity for independent detection, recognition, and discrimination of targets at sea or on the coast. This is possible by the combination of an imaging infrared (IIR) seeker and an onboard target database. NSM is able to navigate by GPS, inertial and terrain reference systems. After being launched into the air by a solid rocket booster which is jettisoned upon burning out, the missile is propelled to its target in high subsonic speed by a turbojet sustainer engine—leaving the 125 kg multi-purpose blast/fragmentation warhead to do its work, which in case of a ship target means impacting the ship at or near the water line.
An NSM coastal battery consists of three missile launch vehicles, one battery command vehicle, three combat command vehicles, one mobile communication center, one mobile radar vehicle with TRS-15C radar, one transport and loading vehicle, and one mobile workshop vehicle. Each MLV carries 4 missiles and can be connected to the CCV by optical fiber or radio up to 10 km (6.2 mi) away; up to 6 launchers with 24 missiles can be netted together at once. When installed on ships, NSMs can be deck-mounted in packs of one, two, three, four, or six launchers. Total installation weight, including electronics and cabling, is 8,600 lb (3,900 kg) for four launchers, 17,000 lb (7,700 kg) for eight launchers, and 26,000 lb (12,000 kg) for 12 launchers.
