The Sea Venom/ANL anti-ship missile has completed its qualification firings trials, with a successful final firing at the French Armament General Directorate (DGA) test site at Ile du Levant on 17 November. The final qualification trial tested the missile’s advanced target discrimination within a complex and cluttered naval scenario. Previous trials have tested the missiles launch envelope, release envelope and engagement modes, such as its low-altitude sea-skimming flight, lock on after launch (LOAL), lock on before launch (LOBL), operator-in-the-loop, and aimpoint refinement.
Éric Béranger, MBDA CEO, said: “I want to congratulate the UK-French teams across both MBDA and our governments for the commitment they have shown in meeting this qualification milestone amid the disruption caused by Covid-19. Together they have proven that through co-operation we can jointly overcome adversity and deliver leading edge military capabilities.”
Soon to start equipping the Royal Navy’s AW159 Wildcat and Marine nationale’s H160M Guépard shipborne helicopters, the Sea Venom/ANL anti-ship missile is a co-operation project developed under the Lancaster House treaty between France and the United Kingdom. The Sea Venom/ANL missile is the first programme to take full advantage of the cross-border centres of excellence on missile technologies launched by the Lancaster House treaty, which celebrated its 10-year anniversary this month.
Sea Venom is an Anglo-French lightweight anti-ship missile developed by MBDA to equip the French Navy and the Royal Navy.Sea Venom is designed as a successor to the French Navy’s AS 15 TT and Royal Navy’s Sea Skua missiles. The missile is known as Anti-Navire Léger (ANL) in France and Sea Venom (formerly Future Anti-Surface Guided Weapon (Heavy)) in the United Kingdom. Initial operating capability is expected with the Royal Navy in 2022. The first test launch, conducted from an AS365 Dauphin owned by France’s DGA defence procurement agency, successfully occurred on 21 June 2017.
