NSM concept

“Lockheed & Kongsberg Partner to Bring NSM to JSF” covered Kongsberg’s stealthy new Naval Strike Missile (Nytt Sjomalsmissil), which recently completed its testing. NSM has definite market potential as an internal carriage option for nations buying the F-35 Lightning II, but this long-range complement to their popular Penguin short-range anti-ship missile also had a more immediate option closer to home. In the largest order Kongserg has landed to date, the firm has now signed a NOK 2.746 billion (about $466.4 million) contract with the Norwegian Armed Forces’ Logistics Organisation for serial production of the new Naval Strike Missile (NSM). This includes the transition contract for NOK 200 million (about $34 million).

The 1,000-pound, stealth-enhanced NSM missiles are a generation beyond the USA’s GM-8 Harpoon, with a 130 nautical mile operational range. The missile uses Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System (GPS/INS) guidance plus an imaging infrared seeker, in-flight data link, and an automatic target recognizer (ATR). Then it strikes ships or land targets with a titanium warhead and programmable fuze.

Skjold Class
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This contract covers the production of NSMs for Norway’s Nansen Class AEGIS frigates, and Skjold Class catamaran-hovercraft fast attack craft. Production under this contract will run until 2014, and will ensure employment for 200 – 250 individuals in Kongsberg, as well as work for nearly 120 of their 1400 Norwegian subcontractors in Akershus, Buskerud, and Oppland counties. Tom Gerhardsen, president of Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, adds in the firm’s release that the contract will also ”...give us the references we need to sell the missile to other countries’ naval defence forces. Several countries have already indicated an interest in the NSM.”