MBDA (UK)

[The Armchair Soldier]

MBDA UK is the British subsidiary of the pan-European missile systems company MBDA (itself a joint venture of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo). Formed in 2001, the company has produced a range of missile systems, including the CAMM missile family, Storm Shadow cruise missile, ASRAAM air-to-air missile and Meteor beyond-visual-range missile (BVRAAM).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBDA_UK

[dmereifield]

http://www.janes.com/article/63496/chil ... 23-upgrade

According to Janes, it is now down to either the Barak-8 or the Sea Ceptor

[RichardIC]

So the Chilean Navy Type 23s are going to get Sea Ceptor, but not as part of the package proposed by BAE which mirrored the RN upgrades with Artisan etc

http://www.monch.com/mpg/news/15-mariti ... gates.html

[Jdam]

MBDA seems to be doing well with this missile, 4 customers already.

[dmereifield]

Good for MBDA. I suppose its not a massive contract, for what 70-80 missiles (?), presumably about £10 million or so for MBDA? Do they manufacture the missiles in the UK?

[shark bait]

Made in Belfast I believe.

Good news from Chile, thought it was a dead set on the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile a while back. CAMM is a great product, high performance and low cost, it blows everything out the water at its price point, one of the few highlights from MOD procurement recent.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Launch from existing installations must have been the decider as the work is to be done in Chilean yards OK for ships, but for h-end militar fitting out...?

[Timmymagic]

"Made in Belfast I believe.

Good news from Chile, thought it was a dead set on the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile a while back. CAMM is a great product, high performance and low cost, it blows everything out the water at its price point, one of the few highlights from MOD procurement recent."

The belief that the US had it in the bag was on quite a few forums. It dd appear to stem from a lack of understanding of what the FMS request actually meant. A lot of people seemed to think it was the actual order rather than the notification of a potential sale.

[Ron5]

Made in Belfast I believe.

Good news from Chile, thought it was a dead set on the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile a while back. CAMM is a great product, high performance and low cost, it blows everything out the water at its price point, one of the few highlights from MOD procurement recent.

Don't think it's made in Belfast. You're thinking of LMM.

[shark bait]

Your right, Thales is in Belfast, MBDA is in Bolton, got them mixed up.

[dmereifield]

MBDA scopes two-phase Sea Viper IAMD implementation

http://www.janes.com/article/66674/mbda ... ementation

[shark bait]

Aster goes on every French ship they export so I'm assuming its built in France?

[RetroSicotte]

French/Italian, mostly.

[dmereifield]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/dragonf ... er-weapon/

Dragonfire laser prototype to be produced by 2019

[shark bait]

hope like the American system it comes with its own independent power source and control.

[dmereifield]

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articl ... ssile.html

Not sure if this impacts/benefits MBDA UK specifically, but good news nonetheless

[ArmChairCivvy]

Spells out the differentiators nicely:
" AMRAAM/NASAMS, VL MICA, ASTER 15 and IRIS-T are not fully compliant with the above requirements.

None of those missiles has “soft-launch” firing; IRIS-T has optical guidance; AMRAAM cannot be destroyed in flight by its C2 system, while Aster 15 and VL MICA cannot reach the required minimum range."

[shark bait]

CAMM-ER is a little bit fatter than ours, but is it too wide to fit in out silos?

[Phil R]

Did not see this until today: Sea Venom Test Firing
http://www.mbda-systems.com/press-relea ... venom-anl/

Good to see this programme slowly making progress.

Phil R

[Timmymagic]

"CAMM-ER is a little bit fatter than ours, but is it too wide to fit in out silos?"

It's a metre longer as well.

You have to say it seems like a no-brainer for the RN and Army. 45km+ (and I think it's significantly further than that) range is a capability we've not had ever on most of the fleet, and haven't had for the Army ever, nor for the RAF since Bloodhound. It doesn't even need to be a mid-life upgrade for T26, we could spec it in now.

But it's too sensible..therefore will never happen.

[Ron5]

CAMM-ER is a little bit fatter than ours, but is it too wide to fit in out silos?

It will fit. The carrying case/launcher has the same cross section.

[Ron5]

"CAMM-ER is a little bit fatter than ours, but is it too wide to fit in out silos?"

It's a metre longer as well.

You have to say it seems like a no-brainer for the RN and Army. 45km+ (and I think it's significantly further than that) range is a capability we've not had ever on most of the fleet, and haven't had for the Army ever, nor for the RAF since Bloodhound. It doesn't even need to be a mid-life upgrade for T26, we could spec it in now.

But it's too sensible..therefore will never happen.

Not entirely. CAMM-ER has roughly double the minimum range than the standard missile. That leaves rather a large bubble of undefended air around your launcher/warship.

[andrew98]

So load 50% CAMM-ER and 50% CAMM then.
If launching 2 missiles at inbound targets, fire the CAMM-ER's 1st then the CAMM's 2nd....

[Ron5]

Well that's the Type 45 solution (with their Aster 15/30 mix) but not ideal for a bunch of obvious reasons.

Also not obvious is the need for a warship mounted, self-defence CAMM to have extra range. Worst case is an incoming, supersonic, sea skimmer. Simple math shows that even if the hostile is detected (and the CAMM fired) the instant it broaches the horizon (by radar or IR), interception will occur within the standard CAMM's operational range.

You might be thinking that CAMM-ER would extend coverage to escorted ships. You may be correct but I'm very skeptical of such claims. Point defence systems are usually just that.

[WhitestElephant]

I thought CAMM was meant to have some capability in the local area defence role, and not entirely point-defence?