What is Naval Strike Missile capable of – the weapon that Ukraine is asking for in Norway
Recently, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked Norway to hand over Naval Strike Missile anti-ship missiles to Ukraine. They can significantly help the Armed Forces in the war against the Russian occupiers.
What is the Naval Strike Missile capable of?
The NSM anti-ship missile created by Kongsberg, one of the world’s leading defense companies. This cruise missile chosen for armament in the United States, Germany, Canada, Poland, Romania, and also planned to be installed on British missile boats that will be built for Ukraine.
The missile began to be built in the early 2000s and outlined many features that later became key and made this weapon successful.
It is important to note that the weapons created with certain restrictions on size and weight, as they primarily planned to be used in the Norwegian Navy, which used Fridtjof Nansen frigates and Skjold-class missile boats.
Therefore, the length of the rocket is 3.95 meters. The missile itself has a horizontal launch and does not use radar, but instead is equipped with a thermal imaging homing head. This allows the missile to be extremely inconspicuous and deliver accurate strikes.
In addition, many measures have been taken to make the missile even less visible. In addition to the traditional low-altitude flight over the crests, composite and radio-absorbing materials are widely used in the “stealth contour” hull. In addition, at the end of the flight, the missile begins to maneuver actively.
How the rocket works
The Defense Express portal told in detail about the path of the missile from the moment of launch to hit the target. Before launch, the missile is embedded in the infrared signature of the target. After separating the solid propellant accelerator, the small turbojet engine TRI 40 from the French company Microturbo (included in Safran) is switched on.
It weighs only 44 kilograms, but provides a thrust of 3.3 kN, which allows the 410-kilogram Naval Strike Missile to accelerate to Mach 0.9 and fly up to 185 kilometers.
A special inertial missile system uses satellite navigation. There is also a terrain tracking system – TERCOM, which can track real photos of the surface, compare them with the reference image and even adjust the flight, if necessary.
This set of technologies allows the Naval Strike Missile to fly above the ground, which with the use of a sensitive homing thermal imaging head allows you to destroy ground targets. Among other things, the missile can follow the established route, bypassing the areas of air defense.
During the last phase of the flight, the homing head “catches” the infrared footprint of the target and compares it with the data recorded before launch. This is followed by the moment of attack of the ship near the waterline. The 125-kg high-explosive fragmentation warhead is responsible for destroying the target.
Demonstration of the Naval Strike Missile anti-ship missile in progress: watch the video
