According to a press release published on April 14, 2021, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and THALES in the UK have joined forces to offer SEA SERPENT as a compelling solution to equip the Royal Navy’s Type 23 frigates with an anti-ship and anti-surface missile that can match and overmatch a rapidly expanding range and intensity of current and emerging threats.
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Live firing from a ship (Picture source: Israel Aerospace Industries)
The SEA SERPENT delivers an agile, highly penetrative, combined anti-ship and land attack capability at ranges significantly in excess of 200 km. It deploys an innovative RF seeker head and a sophisticated data analysis and weapon control system to provide precise target detection, discrimination and classification. It overcomes both kinetic counter-fire and electronic countermeasures of increasing sophistication, so that the missile can locate and attack its target in littoral, open-ocean and overland environments. It is especially designed to prevail in contested, congested and confusing situations characterised by large numbers of decoys, disrupted reality and heavy electronic interference, as well as clutter from land and false returns. In fast-moving situations, SEA SERPENT incorporates mid-course updates from real-time ISTAR feeds and the ability to re-task in flight, especially in cooperative engagements and distributed sensor-and-shooter networks.
As the most advanced ship-launched anti-surface missile in the free world, SEA SERPENT also offers significant Military Off-the-Shelf Solution (MOTS) advantages in terms of cost, time-to-procurement, entry into operational service and risk reduction. Benchmarked against the need to defeat the most sophisticated platforms and technologies, SEA SERPENT has been developed in parallel with similar missile systems in service with the Israeli Navy and was selected to provide powerful strike capabilities for Finland’s SSM2020 programme. These systems are based on the heritage of the GABRIEL family of surface-to-surface missiles. SEA SERPENT has already demonstrated an impressive Next Day capacity to deal with emerging threats, as well as the technological flexibility for further growth and development.
