Sea Venom/ANL anti-ship missile completes first firing
NewsJuly 05, 2017
ILE DU LEVANT, France. MBDA officials announced that the company's ?s Sea Venom/ANL anti-ship missile completed its first firing at the ?le du Levant test range in France.
Conducted last month, the trial of the 100 kg-class missile was performed from a Dauphin test bed helicopter owned by the DGA (Direction Générale de l’Armement – the French defence procurement agency).
The Sea Venom was developed to enable enhanced capability and replace existing and older systems such as the United Kingdom-developed Sea Skua and the French-developed AS15TT anti-ship missiles.
Jointly ordered in 2014, the Sea Venom/ANL project has been developed 50/50 between the United Kingdom and France and has played a key part in the creation of shared centers of excellence on missile technologies in both countries, according to MBDA.
“Although a first firing this was in no way a cautious one," Paul Goodwin, deputy head of the Sea Venom project. "The system was pushed to the very edge of its range capability. The next step is to exercise the systems’ operator-in-the-loop capabilities.”
In United Kingdom service the missile is expected to be used from the AW159 Wildcat helicopter, while France will operate the missile from its new Hélicoptère Interarmées Léger (HIL). The missile has been designed for use from the widest range of platforms, with air carriage trials having been performed to demonstrate compatibility of the missile on legacy Lynx helicopters.
