KONGSBERG has received a confirmation that the Spanish Navy will acquire the Naval Strike Missile (NSM) to replace the Harpoon missile when this is retired from active service. The company cannot provide any further comment on the potential size of this contract.The Spanish Navy plans to equip both the existing F-100 and the new F-110 with NSM. Additional information will be announced when the contract is awarded. The Naval Strike Missile (NSM) is an anti-ship and land-attack missile developed by the Norwegian company Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA). The original Norwegian name was Nytt sjømålsmissil. 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 (115 mi; 100 nmi). 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.
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. 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. 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.
The Álvaro de Bazán class, also known as the F100 class, is a class of Aegis combat system-equipped air defence frigates in service with the Spanish Navy. The vessels were built by Spanish shipbuilder Navantia in Ferrol, with the lead ship of the class named for Admiral Álvaro de Bazán. The F110 class, also known as the Bonifaz class, are a multi-purpose, anti-submarine class of Aegis combat system-fitted heavy frigates under construction for the Spanish Navy. The project is being co-developed by the Spanish Ministry of Defence and the state-owned company Navantia. The construction of the first unit started in April 2022 and are scheduled to be delivered starting in about 2025.
