Next-Generation Anti-ship Missile
| Next-Generation Anti-ship Missile | |
|---|---|
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| Type | Anti-ship supersonic cruise missile |
| Place of origin | Joseon |
| Service history | |
| In service | 2019–present |
| Used by | Royal Joseon Armed Forces |
| Production history | |
| Manufacturer | Daesung Aerospace,. Inc. |
| Unit cost | $1,896,000 (FY 2021) |
| Specifications | |
| Length |
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| Width |
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| Warhead | Titanium-cased penetrating blast and controlled fragmentation |
| Warhead weight | 200 kg (440 lb) |
| Engine | Ramjet |
Operational range |
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| Flight altitude | Sea skimming optional |
| Speed | Mach 2.34 |
Guidance system | GPS-aided INS (GAINS), laser altimeter, TERCOM, Imaging Infra-Red (IIR), with AI guidance in on-board sensors (to detect high-value target) |
Launch platform | Fighter aircraft, Mark 41 Vertical Launching System, Mark 57 Peripheral Vertical Launch System |
The Next-Generation Anti-ship Missile(NGAM) is a supersonic air-to-ship/ship-to-ship cruise missile developed by Joseon's Daesung Aerospace. Developed as a successor to the SSM-700K C-Star, the NGAM began its deployment in the Navy and Air Force in 2019.
The missile is expected to replace the entire inventory of SSM-700K C-Star and AGM-84 Harpoon missiles held by the Royal Joseon Armed Forces by the mid-2020s.
Development
The SSM-700K C-Star and AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, which were previously used by the Navy, could not be mounted on the VLS and had to be operated on a dedicated slope launcher. This meant that the number of missiles that could be mounted on a single ship was limited, and the range of flexible armament options was limited depending on the mission.
As major countries' supersonic anti-ship weapons developed since the 2000s, Joseon launched a domestic supersonic anti-ship weapon program to counter them. The new anti-ship weapon had to be supersonic, able to be equipped on VLS, and be designed to be more difficult to intercept than existing supersonic anti-ship missiles. In addition, new anti-ship weapons should had been able to be converted into ground attack weapons with simple adjustments if necessary, and also able to be equipped on an internal weapons bay of stealth fighter jets being developed at the time. This was intended to reduce the cost of maintaining weapons by unifying the ammunition system.
Under the cooperation of the Agency for Defense Development(ADD), Daesung Aerospace embarked on the development of the missile. The project began in 2015, and there was a test-fire of a prototype missile in 2017. After the successful flight of the prototype, Daesung Aerospace successfully completed several additional test launches. After the assessment that it met the military's required operational capability(ROC), the Navy and Air Force named the missiles Next-Generation Anti-ship Missile(NGAM) and began purchasing them.
NGAMs began being deployed to the Navy in 2019, and the Air Force deployed missiles to operational fields in 2020.
Design and features
The state-of-the-art design and use of composite materials are meant to give the missile sophisticated stealth capabilities. Warhead initiation is by a void-sensing Programmable Intelligent Multi-Purpose Fuze designed to optimise effect against hard targets.
The target selection technology provides NGAM with a capacity for independent detection, recognition, and discrimination of targets at sea or on the coast. This is possible by the combination of an imaging infrared (IIR) seeker and an onboard target database. NGAM is able to navigate by GPS, inertial and TERCOM systems.
Unlike conventional supersonic missiles, NGAM defies the high-dive flight method and flies with sea-skimming and evasive maneuvers at an altitude of 3 meters while maintaining the basic framework of supersonic anti-ship missiles. This takes the characteristics of Western subsonic missiles into account. NGAM is able to fly over and around landmasses, travel in sea skim mode, and then make random maneuvers in the terminal phase, making it harder to intercept by enemy countermeasures.
Because the cruising speed is 2 to 3 times the speed of sound and more than 4 times the maximum speed of sound just before entering the target, supersonic missiles are difficult for the enemy to intercept at that speed alone, but unlike previous generations of missiles that rely solely on speed, NGAM has the characteristic of flying close to the surface, which can reduce the enemy's chances of intercepting by extremely reducing the distance detectable by the enemy.
In addition, NGAM is a supersonic anti-ship missile, but it has the ability to deceive or evade intercept attempts through 10G-level evasive maneuvers, making it more difficult for the enemy to intercept the missile. When NGAM enters the terminal phase, it performs a pattern-based evasive maneuver based on a randomly determined pattern, further reducing the likelihood that the enemy can intercept the missile.
The NGAM is equipped with ECCM functionality based on AI sensors to counter modern electronic countermeasures. If it is determined that the enemy is attempting ECM on the missile, the NGAM automatically tracks the source of the radio waves coming from which they emit the jamming radio waves and strikes the target emitting the jamming radio waves. At this stage, the NGAM again identifies and attacks the target with the optical/active radar composite sensor, preparation for in case the enemy deliberately uses a decoy to emit the radio waves or mimics the signal from the high-value target.
Since the NGAM is equipped with various guidance devices such as GPS-guided inertial navigation guidance and imaging Infra-Red, simply adjusting the software settings of the NGAM can use the NGAM as a ground strike missile.
Operators
Royal Joseon Armed Forces operates NGAM as standard anti-ship and anti-ground missiles of the Navy and Air Force.
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