Navy Strategy Arms LCS, Frigate Fleet With New Maneuverable Attack Missile-2021

By Kris Osborn – Warrior Maven

The US Navy is arming its entire fleet of Littoral Combat Ships and emerging Frigates with a new high-speed, highly maneuverable long-range ship fired missile designed to track and destroy enemy ships in open sea warfare.

The Naval Strike Missile weapon, able to travel on a range of attack trajectories for improved effectiveness, will be operation by 2021, Navy officials said.

“It will enable long range surface strike” Naval Sea Systems Command spokesman Alan Baribeau told Warrior Maven.

Integrating this weapon is a key element of a broader Navy strategic shift, in place now for several years, intended to better arm the LCS for more substantial maritime warfare missions than those for which it was originally intended – due to the rapid rise of advanced near-peer threats. Called the Over-the-Horizon Weapons System, the NSM is intended to add greatly enhanced offensive land and sea attack possibilities.

It is engineered to target enemy ships, small boats and other threats from areas beyond more immediate “line-of-sight” targeting technologies. It has an approximate range of 100 nautical miles.

“All LCS and FFG(X) (Frigate) platforms are planned to receive the OTH-WS. The OTH-WS shipsets will be procured from May, 2018,” Baribeau said.

The first installations, Navy developers explain, will begin in 2020, building upon an recently awarded production deal to a Raytheon Kongsberg industry team.