Poland Orders Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile

Kongsberg Defence Systems has signed a MNOK 660 contract with the Polish Ministry of Defence. The scope of the contract includes Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) and logistics equipment.

The contract is pending approval of the related offset contract.

When searching for missiles for its new frigates and coastal corvettes, the Royal Norwegian Navy studied thoroughly existing missiles on the market and the planned upgrades of these. None of these missiles were found to satisfy the requirements of a modern navy well into 2015 and beyond. It was therefore decided to develop a completely new missile based on latest technology, the NSM.

NSM is the only fifth generation long range precision strike missile in existence as per today. Already chosen by the Royal Norwegian Navy for its new frigates and new coastal corvettes, the NSM will be fully operational on these ships when they enter service in the near future. The NSM is also selected by the Polish Navy for use on its new coastal artillery installations.

The NSM is a very flexible system which can be launched from a variety of platforms against a variety of targets.

The airframe design and the high thrust to weight ratio gives the NSM extremely good maneuverability. The missile is completely passive, has proven its excellent sea skimming capabilities and with its advance terminal maneuvers it will survive the enemy air defences. The Autonomous Target Recognition (ATR) of the seeker ensures that the correct target is detected, recognised and hit, at sea or on land.

Being a cost-effective system which has demonstrated unsurpassed capabilities in numerous tests, the international interest for this missile is strongly increasing in NATO and other countries.