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Exocet Block3: A multipurpose antiship missile
Interview of Guy de Beaucorps, Marine Advisor for MBDA
The Exocet enjoys a good reputation. Besides its range, increased to 180 km, what are the other modifications brought to the device in terms of guiding and military payload?
The Exocet missile family has acquired a solid reputation. It is serviced in 35 armed forces around the world and was used successfully on the occasion of several aero-naval operations. After the MM38 – implemented since the early 70’s – several generations have succeeded each other. The fourth one includes the MM40 Block3, whose development is due to end this year. The new missile enjoys a modified cell with a turbo-engine and a disposable booster. That new type of motorization enables it to considerably increase its range – to 180km instead of the 72 km the Block1 and Block2 missiles are capable of.
The military payload of the Exocet Block2 has been kept as it is, unlike its navigation, which was upgraded. Next to the inertial unit, ensuring the cruise navigation of the Block1 and Block2 missiles, a GPS receptor has been added. The MM40 Block3 can navigate thanks to the GPS and the inertial unit; during the final phase, it uses its homing device in order to acquire the target ship position and hurtle towards it. With the addition of the GPS, it is now able to deal with fixed targets in a coastal environment.
Test launch of an Exocet Block3. (© MBDA) |
Will it still be possible to use it from coastal batteries of canons?
Absolutely. Today three countries use coastal batteries armed with Exocet MM40 : the Qatar, Cyprus and Greece. The Exocet MM40 Block3 could very well be suited to a coastal battery system. It is worth pointing out that the MM40 Block3 can be fired from the same tubes as the MM40 Block1 or Block2. Therefore, an existing coastal battery can be armed with MM40 Block3 provided the electronic part of the installations is upgraded to accommodate the modernization.
Will some modifications have to be added on the launching ships that are already able to fire the former versions of the missile?
What I have just said about coastal batteries is also valid for surface ships. A war-ship that already has MM40 Block1 or Block2 will be able easily to be equipped with the new Block3 version. The mechanical interfaces on deck have been kept the same. On the contrary, the electronic racks inside the technical premises will have to be modified.
Are you considering using the « SM » and « AM » versions of the Block3 ?
The US frigate Stark is taking a list after 2 Exocet missiles, launched from Iraqi aircrafts, are alleged to have struck it in 1987, resulting in 37 casualties among the sailors.(© DoD) |
That’s right, but they will not be called Block3. MBDA has chosen the name Block2 Mod2 in order to show that the modification of the versions fired from submarines or aircraft are less radical than the ones designed for the MM40 Block3. The Block3 operation consists not only in changing the engine and adding a GPS receiver, but also to digitalize the missile. Indeed, the MM40 Block2, AM39 Block2 and SM39 Block2 currently are analogue missiles. As for the missiles that are launched from a submarine or an aircraft, the powder booster has been kept, so that the missiles keep the same range. No GPS receiver has been added on either. However they are being digitalized to make them suitable to new generation submarines and aircraft. The development of the AM39 Block2 Mod2 will soon be completed, and as for the SM39 Block2 Mod2 it has been scheduled to start by the end of the decade.
On Thursday 14 June, in the Mediterranean Sea, took place the successful validation test shot of the AM39 Block2Mod2 missile, launched from the Rafale with the F3 standard. At the end of that morning, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft-carrier catapulted a Rafale fighter with the F3 standard equipped with an AM39 Block2 Mod2 missile. The device was launched from a height of 27.000 feet, it made a diving flight to reach a very low altitude and impacted the target after performing evasive maneuvers. The Rafale F3 is the latest completely digitalized generation fighter. It was therefore necessary to include such an upgrade to our class of Exocet missiles.
Interview by Nathalie Vergeron and Joseph Henrotin, on 20 July 2007
The Block3 : could this turn out to be a little revolution in terms of land strikes?
A Block3 launched from a coastal battery. Its adoption will considerably increase the tactical capabilities of the Navy. (© MBDA) |
Naval forces increasingly gear themselves toward a capacity for land strikes and, in this framework, it has become necessary to transform antiship missiles (ASCM – Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles) into classical cruise missiles (LACM - Land Attack Cruise Missiles), as the solution suited to a great number of operators. Such an evolution has turned out both as an economic design (thanks to resorting to tried and tested technologies), as well as when purchasing it. Indeed, even though the price of the device has not yet been disclosed, it is almost certain that an Exocet Block3 is less costly than a Naval SCALP or a Tomahawk. Besides, that evolution is in favor of integrating the missiles to platforms that have first been equipped with ASCM, which reduces the needs in terms of training. One last advantage, and it is not the least, the Block3 has proved capable to considerably enlarge the scope of naval options: a mere frigate thus becomes endowed with capabilities that used to be reserved to dedicated ships.
Furthermore, with a 180-km range, increased strategic opportunities can be looked forward to: most world populations – hence most crises – are concentrated within a 200-km zone around coastal areas. All the more so as the resistance of the device to counter-measures has been enhanced and since engineers have been working on reducing its equivalent frontal radar section. In the same way, the missile is alleged to have a small IR signature, and both these forms of stealth have become necessary for the success of land strikes, whether trying to profit from the surprise effect or not. The missile cell has been optimized, maneuverability seems to be relatively good, which is a choice asset in the framework of evasive maneuvering or of programming complex flight phases (diversion, etc.). It must also be noticed that the missile can be launched from vertical cells.
Nevertheless, the land striking capacities of the device remain officially unknown: top Defense secret. The most an observer will tell us is that it is able to strike a target on land with the precision of a GPS system, i.e., “the public channel”. However, in view of the principle that the 2004 European and US accord imposed connectivity between Galileo and the GPS, it is an easy bet to bank on a circular inaccuracy for the device that will range below 5 to 15 meters, as is generally allowed as the topnotch accuracy of such a system. All the more so as the size of the missile permits other evolutions that tend, all the same, to become common. That is the case of, for example, the installation of imagery and IR on devices such as the Norwegian Strike Missile or on the defunct RGM-84E SLAM (a concept that was tested then given up by the US Navy in the early 1990’s ; it later decided it had rather install next generation missiles on its combat crafts) for example.
Lastly, let us indicate that with a 180-km range missile it remains below the fateful 300 km imposed as the limit to the Missile Technology Control Regime. In other worlds, possible export should not be a problem. It is easy to understand that, in view of the costly tandem between the Harpoon and the Tomahawk proposed by the Americans, the Exocet Block3 has got everything it takes to become a tremendous commercial weapon. MBDA does not propose a version installed on a submarine, thus avoiding possible political outcries while limiting quite real proliferation hazards. However, with 33 clients and more than 3.300 missiles that have already been sold, the market that is left open for the commercial Exocet remains a large… and a very profitable one.
The Teseo, the other multipurpose antiship by MBDA
Test launching of a Teseo. The device is also suited to the evolution of the present trends in the area of land attacks. (© MBDA) |
Even though the Block3 remains a multipurpose antiship missile, a new version of the Teseo missile, the MK2/A, has also been tested successfully. It is derived from the Otomat, and the Teseo boasts a 150-km range for a 770-kg payload. It will equip the Italian ships and, in the same way as the Block3, has been rigged with a radar guiding system, a GPS and an inertial unit, which enables it to carry out antiship as well as land strike missions. During the flight, it is able to receive information coming from other ships or aircraft or helicopters. It has a 210-kg charge of explosives that is able to bore through 80 mm steel armor plating. During the tests, it reached targets that were 80 km away in a matter of 5 minutes. In late 2006, the Marina militare ordered the upgrading to standard of the MK2/A with 38 missiles (27 operational ones) for an amount of €45b.
The device is marketed on the export markets such as the Teseo MK2 Block IV, and it could also enjoy a certain amount of success abroad, in view of the fact that 12 naval forces use the missile. Just like the Exocet, the Teseo is able to adopt complex attack profiles and can be used in coordinated attacks. Its resistance to countermeasures has also been improved and it enjoys flight profiles that enable it to counter the effects of the CIWS defense systems.
| © : Technology&Armament |
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