Article Posted on : - Aug 18, 2010

Sea Viper missile is fired during recent trials in Mediterranean.

LONDON (BNS): Royal Navy’s newest air defence missile system ‘Sea Viper’ has successfully completed the test trials for the new fleet of Type 45 destroyers in the Mediterranean Sea.

The system has directly targeted multiple missiles, which were fired against a manoeuvrable sea-skimming target travelling at hundreds of miles an hour.

"The DE&S weapons and destroyer’s teams and MBDA, alongside our international partners, have worked closely together to achieve a very successful trial’s outcome. We have overcome a number of significant hurdles and everyone involved is rightly proud of reaching this milestone,” Richard Smart, Head of Complex Weapons at Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S), said in a UK MoD news release.

Sea Viper is capable of defending the Type 45 ships in its company against multiple attacks from the most sophisticated enemy aircraft or missiles approaching from any direction and at supersonic speeds. It can even engage more than ten targets simultaneously - a huge leap in capability for the Royal Navy.

The system is equipped with sophisticated, phased-array Sampson radar, which has a range of 400 kilometres. Its onboard position about 30 metres above the water widens its horizon at sea level to enable the system to react to high-speed, very low-level, anti-ship missiles.

The groundbreaking missile system was previously known as PAAMS, later it was renamed by the Royal Navy as Sea Viper.