Leidos Australia and Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace signed a memorandum of understanding at Indo Pacific 2025, which ran from November 4-6, within which the possibility of implementing a concept of installing the Norwegian NSM anti-ship missile on unmanned surface vessels from Leidos Sea Archer and Long Bow will be considered.
As Naval News reports, such cooperation is aimed at expanding flexibility and providing new capabilities to the Royal Australian Navy compared to assets currently in service with the Australian military.
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And first of all, it's worth focusing on those sea drones on which they plan to integrate the NSM anti-ship missile specifically, we're talking about the Sea Archer and Long Bow unmanned surface vessels.
And it's worth starting with Sea Archer this is a modular sea drone designed to perform various tasks, including strike missions it can reach speeds of up to 40 knots (about 74 km/h), has a range of 1,500 nautical miles (over 2,700 km), and can carry up to 900 kg of payload.
While Long Bow is essentially the older and larger version of Sea Archer with the ability to carry several times more payload up to 3,000 kg.
Whereas the NSM anti-ship missile weighs up to 400 kg, so on Sea Archer together with the launcher there's probably the possibility of carrying only one missile, while on Long Bow it's quite possible to place several NSM missiles.
So when we talk about the Neptune anti-ship missile on a sea drone, it's worth understanding that it must be a sufficiently large drone capable of carrying an 870 kg missile together with its launcher on board.
Defense Express previously reported on how the new Sea Baby transformed into a sea fighter.
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