Lockheed Martin and Japan are on the table for joint production of the newly fielded Mk70 Payload Delivery System (PDS), a containerised version of Mk41 VLS.

Lockheed Martin officials speaking to Naval News revealed that discussions with Japanese officials are ongoing for the production of Mk70 PDS in Japan.

It was stated that JMSDF is interested in acquiring the containerised VLS module packaged in a 40 ft container. It can be placed on the upcoming OPVs or the Mogami-class frigates to provide long-range strike or, in the latter’s case, air defence capabilities.

It is unknown if the discussions include integrating the upcoming missiles like the “Improved Type 12” anti-ship missile, which has low observability and range advantages compared to the legacy version fielded by JMSDF. Considering the close cooperation of Japan with the U.S. on high-end warship armament like the SM-3 Block IIA anti-ballistic missile, this should not be ruled out.

Mk70 PDS

Mk70 can fire SM-6 long-range air defence missiles and BGM-109 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles, which can not be fired by smaller warships in normal conditions. Additionally, Mk70 was tested with the PAC-3 MSE air defence missile used on the MIM-104 Patriot.

As a containerised system, Mk70 PDS is a plug-and-play solution connected to a remotely paired fire control unit converging the launcher with sensors. The U.S. Army has fielded Mk70 PDS as the Typhoon weapon system mainly intended to fire BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles in response to land-based long-range cruise missiles being fielded by China and Russia.

The U.S. Navy has tested the launcher system on a MUSV prototype (Deck placement) and Freecom-class (Helipad placement) LCS to fire the SM-6 long-range air defence missile, which can not be fitted to said platforms due to size constraints.

Author: Kaan Azman

Editor: Özgür Ekşi