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Interim Surface-to-Surface Guided Weapon (I-SSGW)

British procurement officials have begun the search for an interim anti-ship missile to replace the Boeing Harpoon Block 1C on the Royal Navy’s surface ships in Augus 2019. The interim surface-to-surface guided weapon will replace the Royal Navy's existing Harpoon missile capability. This would be a relatively modest surface-to-surface weapon — it would not have a very long range and it is not hypersonic. It might cost as much as £250 million, just to allow five sets for three ships. It looked like the earliest would be 2026 or 2027.

Although limited in scope and procurement, the Interim-Surface to Surface Guided Weapon (I-SSGW) program provided ‘a ship launched over the horizon precision anti-ship capability and a terrain following precision maritime land attack capability’ as an interim system replacement of the HARPOON, waiting for the joint French-UK new Future Cruise/Anti-Ship Weapon (FC/ASW) system, which according to the UK MoD, will equip the Type 26 frigates from 2028 onwards.

The Torpedoes, Tomahawk and Harpoon (TTH) Project Team, part of the UK Ministry of Defence, had a requirement for the provision and introduction into service of the I-SSGW system as an interim replacement for the existing system that is going out of service. The I-SSGW is to provide a ship launched over the horizon precision anti-ship capability and a terrain following precision maritime land attack capability. It is anticipated that the I-SSGW capability will operate on 5 Type 23 (Towed Array) frigates capable of concurrent Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and Anti Surface Warfare (ASuW) operations in protection of a formed Maritime Tasking Group, for a 10-year period.

There was a healthy response from Industry to the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire and the MOD planned to proceed to issue an Invitation to negotiate to the down selected bidders later in 2021. In April 2021 Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) announced they had joined with Thales UK to offer the Sea Serpent missile for the I-SSGW competition. The Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile stood out as the smallest of the options by some margin. The latest version of the Saab RBS15 Mk 4 ‘Gungnir’ (Odin’s Spear) appears to offer a good balance between range and warhead size. The Lockheed Martin Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) AGM-158C is the largest, most capable and expensive option.

But by the end of the year the Navy paused the interim surface-to-surface guided weapon programme to say: we accept that there will be a gap as Harpoon comes to the end of its life, but we should reach out to hypersonic weapons and weapons that have plus-1,000 km range.

Industry was formally notified by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in February 2022 that the Interim Surface-to-Surface Guided Weapon (I-SSGW) programme had been cancelled. This decision came despite a commitment in the March 2021 Defence Command Paper to procure a replacement for the RN's legacy ship-launched Boeing Harpoon Block 1C missile.

Work is ongoing to explore a range of options to meet the RN’s Future Offensive Surface Weapon (FOSuW) requirement to replace Harpoon which goes out of service in 2023. This includes the potential fitting of Mk 41 launchers beyond those already planned for the Type 26, including Type 31 and potential retrofit to existing classes, to provide commonality with partner nations, improve interoperability and simplify the inventory of maritime offensive capabilities.