The major sale of air defence missiles to Germany, valued at $3.5 billion, consists of 577 SM-2 Block IIIC and 173 SM-6 Block I air defence missiles as well as related support/equipment, to be used onboard the future F127 AAW frigates with AEGIS combat system.
The scale of sale shows that Germany is more than willing to expand its naval air defence capabilities with the SM-6 Block I missile, which has the longest range in the Standard Missile family at 240+ km. So far, the air defence envelope of the German Navy has been up to 144 km with the SM-2 Block IIIA missile.
SM-6 Block I
SM-6 Block I missile, as the first operational variant of the SM-6 line, is a further development of the SM-2 design, drawing guidance and propulsion upgrades from existing missiles.
The two-stage missile draws its Mk104 rocket motor from the SM-3 exo-atmospheric ballistic missile to achieve a higher flight performance.
On the other hand, the seeker is an enlarged (Thus, more powerful) version of AIM-120C7 AMRAAM’s active RF seeker, but the semi-active homing capability is retained.
In addition to long-range air defence at a range of 240+ km, SM-6, thanks to its large size, can be utilised as a high-speed anti-ship missile with GPS midcourse updates.
SM-2 Block IIIC
SM-2 Block IIIC is the latest variant in the SM-2 line of long-range air defence missiles as a single-stage missile. As an upgrade to the semi-active RF homing SM-2 Block IIIA, the missile incorporates the aforementioned active RF seeker from SM-6 in place of the obsolete semi-active seeker.
Due to the single-stage configuration, SM-2 Block IIIC has a shorter range compared to SM-6 Block I at 144 km due to sharing the propulsion section with SM-2 Block IIIA. However, due to its use of off-the-shelf components and simpler layout, SM-2 Block IIIC is considerably cheaper than SM-6 Block I.
Author: Kaan Azman
Editor:Özgür Ekşi
