NCM at MBDA plant.
France is completing work on a promising cruise missile; with its help, Poland can dramatically increase its military potential.
The long-range sea-launched cruise missile Naval Cruise Missile (NCM) will soon enter service with the French army and will be available for export, according to the online magazine Navy Recognition (NR). According to the newspaper, several samples of the latest missile weapons have already been assembled at the MBDA development company in Sel-Saint-Denis.
NCM is a naval modification of the Anglo-Italian-French aircraft missile Storm Shadow / SCALP (multipurpose high-precision long-range self-guided cruise missile - RP), designed to destroy ground targets.
The range of the new model is at least four times higher than the SCALP indicator, which hits targets at a distance of up to 250 kilometers. According to Missile Threat, the NCM flight radius is from a thousand to 1.4 thousand kilometers. The missile is 6.5 meters long, weighs 1.4 thousand kilograms, of which 300 kilograms is the weight of the warhead. The NCM is equipped with a homing system, an inertial unit, a radio altimeter and a GPS antenna. The missile has incredibly high accuracy when striking targets at considerable distances - this was one of the key requirements for the project during development, the publication emphasizes.
This high-precision weapon with a very long range, presumably exceeding a thousand kilometers, was confirmed to Russkaya Planeta by military expert Andrei Frolov, editor-in-chief of the Arms Export magazine. “The new French missiles are a versatile weapon: they will be used by both surface and submarine ships,” he added.
The French Navy is going to arm the NCM with its FREMM-class multipurpose frigates and the promising Barracuda-class nuclear submarines. From frigates, missiles will be launched from vertical launchers, and the underwater version will be modified for NATO standard caliber torpedo tubes. The French military department has issued a preliminary order for 150 missiles for surface ships and 50 missiles for submarines - its total cost is about € 1.2 billion. Serial production of the standard model will begin next year, the torpedo version in 2018.
Submarine-based NCMs are also suitable for equipping Scorpen-class diesel-electric strike submarines. Since France intends to form its submarine fleet exclusively at the expense of nuclear submarines, submarines of joint Franco-Spanish production are built primarily for foreign fleets. Scorpen's customers include Chile, Malaysia, India and Brazil. Submarines with the NCM missile system on board can be delivered to Poland, which chooses between them and the German non-nuclear submarines of the 214 type.
The manufacturers themselves are actively promoting their rocket for export. They promise future buyers complete gun control. France will have no “key” from NCM that could prevent it from launching on its chosen target, MBDA insists.
However, the export will still be supplied with missiles with "cut" capabilities, but even they will seriously compete with similar export systems of Russian production, says military expert Frolov. According to him, if the Poles buy NCM, it will seriously upgrade their missile armament. “The Poles now have old American frigates, and at best they are armed with Harpoon anti-ship missiles with a range of just over 100 kilometers, as well as Norwegian anti-ship missiles, but they are used in coastal defense. French missiles are the same strike system, but the Poles, in principle, do not have similar ones,”the expert sums up.
