The UK Ministry of Defence and Thales have signed a £36mil contract to supply hundreds more Lightweight Multirole Missiles (LMM) to the British Armed Forces. This builds on contracts already in place with Thales to enhance the UK’s stockpile of missile systems. Thales has quadrupled its production capability for missiles at its facilities in Northern Ireland since 2022. Deliveries of the newly agreed systems will begin over the next few months. LMM is both battle-proven and highly versatile, used across land, sea and air by the UK and allied nations. LMM is laser guided to ensure precision against a range of threats and is particularly effective as a counter uncrewed aerial system (C-UAS) capability. This latest contract further supports around 700 highly skilled jobs in Belfast, where LMM is designed and manufactured.
The Lightweight Multirole Missile (LMM) or Martlet is a lightweight air-to-surface, air-to-air, surface-to-air, and surface-to-surface missile developed by Thales Air Defence for the United Kingdom. It is named after a mythical bird from English heraldry that never roosts, the Martlet. The LMM was developed from the Starburst surface-to-air missile to meet the UK’s “Future Air-to-Surface Guided Weapon (Light)” requirement to equip the Royal Navy’s AW159 Wildcat helicopters and supplement the heavier Sea Venom missile by the engagement of smaller and manoeuvrable naval craft. A glide variant of the LMM known as FreeFall LMM (FFLMM) or Fury is designed as a lighter munition to equip drones and is currently slated to equip the British Army’s Dispensing Rocket Payload for the GMLRS-ER and Precision Strike Missile (PrSM). The Ministry of Defence (MoD) placed an initial order for 1,000 missiles with deliveries due to start in 2013.
The LMM weighs approximately 13 kilograms (29 lb) with a length of 1.3 metres (4 ft 3 in) and a diameter of 76 millimetres (3.0 in).[15] The weapon is guided using a laser beam-riding system but Thales have proposed a variety of additional seekers including a semi-active laser, terminal Infrared, and GPS/INS systems. LMM can be operated from variety of platforms. Martlet has been integrated onto the Royal Navy’s AgustaWestland AW159 Wildcat helicopters which across two weapon wings and four total weapon stations can hold up to 20x missiles, alternatively a mix load of 10x Martlets and 2x Sea Venoms can be carried, or a weapon wing can be removed to allow for a mounted gun on one side. The British Army has integrated LMM on their current armoured (Stormer) and light role Starstreak ground-based air-defence batteries of 12 Regiment Royal Artillery and 106th (Yeomanry) Regiment Royal Artillery to supplement Starstreak.
A number of other surface launch options have been conceived for the LMM such as standalone launchers as well as concepts for LMM to be mounted to other gun systems as the Thales’ 40mm RAPIDfire. LMM and in some cases FFLMM have also been publicly tested by a variety of uncrewed air vehicles (UAVs) including a Schiebel Camcopter S-100, Flyby Technology’s Jackal, and the Hydra 400. Thales state that LMM range, ground launched, is more than 6 kilometres (3.7 mi). The Royal Navy version of the standard Martlet does not have a seeker but rides the sighting device laser beam to the target at ranges from 400 metres (1,300 ft) to beyond 6 kilometres (3.2 nmi; 3.7 mi). The cost of the basic missile, without launch system, has been estimated to be £50,000 by The Times in 2026, and between £59,000 and £71,000 by The Register in 2025.
