Exercise Tamber Shield saw four RN Wildcat helicopters deployed in Norway to develop tactics for the use of Martlet and Sea Venom missiles against fast attack craft.
The Wildcats from 815 Naval Air Squadron and 90 aircrew and support personnel were dispatched from RNAS Yeovilton to Haakonsvern naval base, southwest of Bergen for a 2-week exercise with the Royal Norwegian Navy.
The fjords and complex geography of the region are an ideal environment for fast attack craft operations. For the exercise, two RN P200 boats, HMS Pursuser and HMS Archer were joined by Norwegian Skjold-class stealth corvettes to act as the ‘red force’ opposition for the Wildcats. The objective was to develop search and destroy tactics for the new Martlet and Sea Venom weapon systems, although this was not a live fire exercise and no weapons were released.
The Martlet (or Lightweight Multi-Role Missile) is a laser-designated weapon with a 3kg warhead primarily intended to counter small surface craft and boat swarms. The Wildcat can carry up to 20 Martlets loaded in panniers under the weapon wing mounts fitted on either side of the aircraft, although aerodynamic issues mean it is currently only cleared to carry 10.
Sea Venom is a light anti-ship missile with a range of more than 20 km and designed to counter small combatants up to the size of a corvette or light frigate. Although Initial Operating Capability was declared for Sea Venom in 2021, so far the RN has not publicly announced any live firings and Wildcats carrying the weapon have only been photographed on rare occasions.
While in Norway, the Wildcats accumulated a combined total of 200 flying hours. Aircrew were put through their paces with immersive and realistic training, significantly improving the Wildcat’s ability to hunt and destroy fast patrol boats attempting to hide amongst mountains, islands and inlets.
Recognising the NATO and the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) commitment to defend Europe’s Northern Flank, it is important for as many units and specialists within the RN to have experience of operating in the high north and Arctic environment. This skill set is also relevant to the RN’s ability to operate defensively in the inshore waters around the UK, something that is not frequently rehearsed.
The P2000’s of the Coastal Forces Squadron have been deployed increasingly further afield to provide training opportunities and experience for junior officers. In February four boats, HMS Smiter, Puncher, Archer and Pursuer began the long journey from Portsmouth to Norway. This is the first time P2000s have gone this far north or operated in the Arctic Circle. In March they participated in amphibious exercise Joint Viking and Joint Warrior, together with HMS Albion, RFA Mounts Bay, Norwegian and Dutch forces.
Crews from other P2000s were flown out and rotated for the return journey with HMS Pursuer and Archer remaining in Norway for exercise Tamber Shield. They are now in the Baltic Sea, along with HMS Charger, for exercise Aurora 23 with Swedish Forces and NATO BALTOPS exercise to follow.
In an alternative scenario, the Wildcats acted as scouts for the Norwegian vessels, providing targeting data while the corvette itself remained hidden amongst the natural features to avoid detection.
I dare say the Norwegians would like some practice firing at an hovering target at the sort of ranges Martlet operates from.
The Wildcat does not need to “hover” when firing Martlet. The laser designator has an automatic target tracker that allows the helicopter some manoeuvrability during the few seconds it would take for a salvo of missiles to hit the target.
Against anything other than Somali pirates that flight profile is not going to work at all anymore. Anyone with a even rudimentary surface to air system even a manpad. Is going to leave a couple UK pilots missing. Helicopters are not survivable over land where they can actually hide. In anything resembling open water it’s not good at all.
What ‘rudimentary’ surface to air system does even Skjold-class corvettes have.
For anything that does have missiles you may have missed mention of the 20 km range sea skimming Venom
Does rudimentary missile systems reach out 20km ( to a helicopter below the horizon)
The Skiolds have Mistrals and a 76mm Super Rapid cannon that is rated against anti-ship missiles. Mistral can pull 30G overloads and the SR has been tested against 4 subsonic antiship missiles incoming from 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock with none surviving to 1000m. It really depends on the Radar and how ready the ship is. The ship won’t be able to hit the Wildcat but could neutralise inbound ordinance
Really?
Apart from the 76mm gun, photos and other sites say it’s missiles are pop up below deck NSM launchers behind the wheelhouse. That’s it.
They aren’t real corvettes, but nifty 250 t FPB
My response to Zakk and his response to me below has more info. Even without Mistral the 76mm SR should be enough to deal with Sea Venom depending on Radars the Skiold has. I certainly wouldn’t fancy its chances vs 20 P-700 supersonic Granit/Shipwreck Missiles from a Russian Kirow Class though lol
Its a FPB which has very little stability to fire a longer ranged 76mm accurately. Its not a 6000 t frigate
I would fancy its chances again Granite/Shipwreck as they will be crazily in a hare and probably can’t lock onto a target that small.
Also the 76mm would be ideal to take out missiles that large.
I was thinking a Kirov spam firing all 20 of those Carrier killers tbh lol but you are right their radar seekers would have a hard time locking onto it….NSM would be the best choice to find a sneaky Fast Attack Craft like the Skiold
You would want to keep clear of a ship with NSM on it.
I agree the AAW element is a little thin relying on the main gun as it does.
The Skjold class has not now, and has not ever had, Mistral missile launchers mounted on the vessels. It is a common mistake found everywhere, in Jane’s publications and all over the interweb. Just check any photos of the vessels online, you will not find any photos with a Mistral mounted on a Skjold. Because it never was.
At some time the vessels carried Mistral missiles and tripods in storage underway, to be set up on land protecting the vessels when they where hiding and waiting moored in any bay. Better than nothing. Perhaps…
The only combat oriented ships in the Norwegian Navy that ever carried Mistral launchers, were the Hauk class FACM and SES MCM ships. But all Norwegian Mistrals, launchers and missiles, where given as aid to Ukraine in 2022. You only find Mistral launchers in a couple of Norwegian museums and navy school rooms today.
I found 1 source stating that the Mistrals were retired but nothing more, But I later found out about them being tripod mounted rather than in a SADRAL CIWS 6 round mount. I could have sworn Norway had used SADRAL but I may have mistaken for Finland lol In its full MANPADS configuration Mistral would be less ideal for shooting at missiles with the operator being exposed to the elements. The French Navy uses SADRAL to back up their Asters on their CV.
Never ever deployed on the hulls themselves. But alongside thus……
It’s a Swede ship but similar…….
This norwegian frigate is quite well camouflaged too
No need for radar acquisition on the Wildcat. The EOS can do its own searches or be queued from the ESM suite and track the target at a range well outside of any gun or manpad system. Attack from the rear and the focsle gun is rendered ineffective.
Thats the kind of thing they will have been practising from the aircraft and the boats, developing tactics for offensive actions to maximise targeting opportunities.
Gunbuster I was referring to the Skiolds Radar abilities rather than the Wildcats Sensors 🙂 As I mentioned in other responses the best the Skiold can do is kill the inbound missiles with its 76mm Super Rapid and run the Wildcat out of ordinance forcing a draw basically. Yes you are right about attacking from the rear but that’s harder to do if the enemy become aware of your presence. The Skiolds blind spot is fairly small to be fair compared to other ships
That is where you would run the missile in then?
Probably with another couple simultaneously from other vectors.
Still the Wildcat would have to find the boat, sneak round to its rear arc all whilst the boat is moving and possibly on alert. Not impossible but not easy to do without being detected especially in Norwegian Fiords as they were problematic enough during WW2. Satellite data would be required, this is probably why they are testing against a fast attack craft with stealth features and some gun based Anti Missile defences. Very interesting battle tbf 🙂
Elementary mistake Dear Watson.
Britain’s RN wont be hostile to Norway. This scenario will never happen
Us vs them?
A certain Mr Quisling gave it a good go — his 21st century sprogs might be more successful.
And anyway we owe the Vikings a good good kicking — Sons of the Rock ya bass …
as a descendent of Danes from the island of Mon , plus Norwegians from a forest village inland from Oslo, dont count on it.
Oh the old Forest Viking excuse …
We didn’t cause the bother because we didn’t have a boat.
The Waffen SS would blush at your deflection / excuse-mongery.
Vikings/Norse were mostly a settled people who did *some* raiding.
Not surprised to see your expertise extends to the SS as though its was relevant, sorry the vikings didnt do nice uniforms
Vikings — settled people who only did “some” raiding …
Tell that to the East Cost / Lindisfarne / Iona / Northern France / Dumbarton ..
The Waffen SS — so they were part of the SS but they were soldiers really …
They were soldiers Monday to Friday who only did the odd massacre at the weekend.
Not good x 2.
I’m no Simon Schama but this nation was forged in part by the vikings and because of the vikings we are England. so making them sound like some definitive enemy is silly. They are very much part of the make up of this country and you cannot untangle that. The Angles settled my area in Yorkshire who are basically Danes anyway, and the subsequent invasions created a danelaw split where vikings settled for hundreds of years here, my local accent here has its heritage in the danish old language, and a lot of people here including names of towns are originally danish or ‘Viking’, flippin ek, even king Harold was Danish, and the Normans were of viking descent. A massive red haired kid at my school was called Haldane, which means half Dane, so maybe you need to understand your own history instead of obsessing on the Waffen SS.
Norse (racial origin) when settled, Viking (as in to become) when uppity. But I expect you know that, Duker ☺
Answers FBoT comment also☹
Indeed but its good practice incase Britain ever runs into a similar scenario elsewhere.
Don’t be too sure – Norway has already allowed China to build a research base on its territory.
Golly, you mean there is not a range of targets which need different responses?
And isn’t that why MOD has just bough some eleven sets of NSM to deal with the bigger targets?
11 Sets? Is that 11 Sets of 8 Missiles or 11 Sets of 4 Missiles? (Most Western ASHMs are fired from Quad Launchers such as Mk 141 for Harpoon, 2 and 4 Round Launchers for Exocet etc etc etc)
11 sets of 8 were announced.
Ahhhh TY 😉
Hey hey he has found another website as well as UKDJ to spout his anti UK drivel, all the while pretending to be from the UK, which he isn’t! Hello throbber, it’s your fav troll hunter, how’s trolling going? Do t you have some other men’s laundry to do? For the good community on this interesting and info filled website, stand by for his nonsense to get worse and worse!
Perhaps that is why they’re working with the Norwegians to refine operational tactics in a confined but contested maritime environment.
I would like to know where these FACS are expected to come from? Baltic? What were Denmark/Sweden/Norway doing? Russia otherwise – how did they get there? Sailed around the Norwegian coast? Elsewhere? You need to be training also elsewhere.
LMM range is well below that of the horizon. Even the shortest of normal naval or manpad AAW missiles are in the picture, as is any AAW capable gun. Yes, in a salvo, some of these light weight missiles may hit, but it is not necessarily a knockout blow. Any AAW missile hitting a helicopter is likely end of story. LLM only makes sense from a drone & many of them if your opponent is anywhere near peer. Corvette & up, LMM is how to get yourself killed. Venom is not much better. Helicopter launched NSM is a whole different equation. Not everyone is a Somali pirate.
Gnist was in port here last week for Shetland Bus commemorations. Certainly they look the business.
some cracking photo,s
With the Archer’s now rebranded as the Coastal Forces Squadron and increasingly deployed on these sorts of operations it would great to see them replaced by something slightly bigger and much faster to act as a genuine force protection and aggressor vessel.
I think the B1 Rivers are also part of the CFS, so it’s not quite an Archer rebranding.
The P2000s have a capped speed and could go much faster if the Navy wanted to stick bigger engines on them. They’ve been doing aggressor work for some time and I’d have thought the engines would already have been upgraded to something bigger. Not sure why that didn’t happen.
It’ll be interesting to see how the URNU training requirement and coastal forces work will be married in the replacements. Perhaps buying more Sea Class 15s for URNU along with something bigger, would be the way to go.
The design can take 3 engines. I think the design tops at 40kts.
I would be more worried about all that extra force being applied to a hull well into middle age.
I would like to the URNU have something like the RCN Orca’s.
Super stuff.
Nice pic of an Ula.
I adore the Skjords. Technically brilliant. Their similar MCM hulls have always be an interest too. We could used something similar surveying the routes around Faslane.
But Martlet is too light and too short legged.
Depends what the target is. Any kind of real warship and they’re not use. But against a group of half a dozen 5M skiffs with a suicidal drivers and 100kg of HE they are very useful.
Oh…….
So what about the 30mm (or 40mm if T31) or CAMM? Half a dozen speed boats is hardly a swarm. Yes CAMM is way more expensive, but how often do you expect this scenario is likely to pop up?
I can’t get how we’ve spent hundreds of millions designing and building an anti-swarm missile that isn’t fire and forget
Like what ? Are you thinking the bigger longer range ASM
This is close range at sea they cant hide below a hill or building like you might on land
Then there is from navy Lookout
“The laser designator has an automatic target tracker that allows the helicopter some manoeuvrability during the few seconds it would take for a salvo of missiles to hit the target.”
Fire and forget allows the helicopter complete manoeuvrability rather than some. But more critically it allows the simultaneous engagement of multiple (aka swarms) of targets whereas Martlet can only be used against a a single target as it requires direction by the helicopter.
Hellfire is an example of a helicopter launched fire and forget missile.
Hellfire is also much bigger 45/50kg V’s 13 kg. It’s also likely much more expensive.
Hellfire is a full on anti tank missile. Martlet is much more of a light support weapon. Similar punch to the 70mm rockets but with a much higher hit probability.
Thats right ‘better’ means bigger/heavier more expensive and fewer carried
Laser Hellfire is not fire and forget only the milimiter wave radar version.
But Martlet wasn’t an expensive development program. It reuses much of the technology and some of the parts from Starstreak. As well as being used from a Wildcat it can be used against surface targets and slower air targets from a Starstreak launcher. It has been seen in this roll in Ukraine.
Exactly, the key advantages of Martlet are versatility/portability and low cost. It seems to have been very useful to combat small drones, which will certainly be a key requirement in any future conflict.
The article comments on Sea Venom not having been seen or used much, despite IOC in 2021.
Your previous article – https://www.navylookout.com/royal-navy-participates-in-sinkex-destroying-a-decommissioned-us-frigate-in-the-north-atlantic/ – on the Sinkex of ex-USS Boone noted they fired Martlet into the ship, but that with a 3kg warhead it wasn’t really intended for that target. It would have seemed a fine opportunity to test Sea Venom – is it odd to have not given it a trial?
I was surprised too.
Let’s hope it does work.
MBDA carried out live trials. Didnt the RN take Sea Venom to sea on the QE pacific deployment
Need to see more of it.
Good to see Princess getting into the warship building game …
Surely an exercise like this just shows how little capability we have at the moment?
Revenue cutters and the world’s shortest range missile in the same exercise as the Skjold class is not a good look.
Has the look and feel of a jolly to be honest.
Hey FBT
OK — looks like a very close run thing.
8km or is it miles vs 10km with the earliest / much lighter version.
I wonder what has the bigger warhead?
Skjold AA capability — isn’t the 76mm gun quite credible?
Limited range in true AA mode but it could be used for longer range area denial with airburst in trad gun mode?
Oto Melara now Leonardo 76mm Super Rapid is rated for anti Missile work and in trials snuffed out 4 missiles that were fired at 90 degrees (North, South, East, West to arrive at the ship from the 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock)
And used on 250 tonne patrol boats and limited fire control ?
This is what the Russian use on Black Sea , 1100 ton air skirt corvettes, the Bora class
Image HI Sutton
Limited fired control? there isa full director above.
The 60t Sparviero Hidrofoil had the RTN 10X that were employed also in Seacat as renamed Type 912.
10km might be the case launched at high speed from a fighter, at sea level and higher air density its different and they would use ESSM/Sea Sparrow for US ships at beyond 5km
‘Skjold 76mm AA capability’ – while tied to the wharf !- You can be serious about its stabilisation even going at 20kts when its a 250 t vessel. More for shore bombardment.
Funny how everything thats USN is super wonderful to you , when they merely have better PR
USN – AAW — Layered defence you say …
Sounds good to me but it doesn’t preclude use of the shorter range missile out to 10km or more if needs must.
3kg warhead against 250T “corvette” — annoy rather than destroy.
Surely a mix would be better — unguided stuff as well as expensive guided stuff? MOD tactics are very one dimensional — mix would be better / more efficient / economical. Plus there is space on the £90mill wing.
£90mill for a weapons wing !!??!! — somebody somewhere is having a giraffe / HS2 build economics and then some.
Looks like a logistics challenge — who runs out of stuff first loses.
76mm shells vs multiple small missiles — picador style attack strategy but with no horse to take the heavy return fire with no real fire and forget angle.
76mm AAW capability — I think you do it a slight disservice.
The mob building it are pretty good at their job — I am sure they have a coping strategy for choppy seas.
I think they have moved on from their “Peacock” class spec model.
USN has better PR — well given the state of MOD PR — they couldn’t be any worse.
Skjold AAW — surprised they didn’t go layered with a real last ditch CIWS system? Probably didn’t want the deck clutter.
“3kg warhead against a 250 ton” – its a FPB not a covette.- is annoying.
So how much bursting charge in a 76 mm shell -ignore for the moment the speed of the missile ( plus unburnt fuel) or speed of the shell.
For the HE version its 0.75kg
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_3-62_mk75.php
Whats good for the goose is 4x better for the gander plus its a guided weapon while the 76mm naval gun on a moving vessel at some speed is more ‘theatrics’ as far as hitting a small helicopter target goes.
Unburnt fuel …
With the range of the Martlet vs the range of the gun — the missile probably hitched a lift for the last mile.
Bursting charge — please don’t waste a good rant with facts.
However — shell vs helicopter is a terminal event if it hits.
Missile vs “corvette” is a flesh wound it it gets through the defensive screen.
Helicopter has 10 missiles and then a journey back to base.
The Skjold has a 76mm gun with 70 plus rounds in the system and spares available to reload.
Two helicopters required.
Mines a shaped charge warhead, cut through the above deck ‘command centre’ or wheelhouse like butter.
Go ahead , make my day
PR photo — impossible full load. It then falls from the sky as the missile exhaust fumes make it into the turbine intake.
Bad start to the day.
Missile needs line of sight direction.
Helicopter is visible to the ship.
76mm shell is faster than the missile.
Targeting pod is toast before the missile reaches its target.
Somebody is going to have a really bad day.
Norway is expensive but a good run ashore.
What aerodynamic issues limit Wildcat to 10 Martlet?
Gravity.
Not inconsequential ones, then!
Is that something that can see a fix with a different stub wing, or uprated engines, or is it more fundamental? I saw some kind of more aerodynamic wing on a photo once which was supposed to provide some lift, but obviously only if there’s some forward movement of the aircraft- if it literally can’t get of the deck with 20 then that’s not much of a help…
Odds on the limit is more to do with safe separation, either powered of jettison, in some part of the flight envelope. Another possibility is rocket exhaust getting somewhere “unhelpful” from the outer pylons.
Martlets are limited to the inner pylons, five on each side. There was an article (NL) in 2021 that said they could still combine those 10 Martlets with two Sea Venom on the outer pylons, and a Sea Venom weighs more than five Martlets, so not just gravity. I don’t know enough about aerodynamics to guess what it implies, but maybe you do.
maximum is 2x 5 each side