The Army and Navy in cooperation with Lockheed Martin [LMT] recently demonstrated the Longbow missile’s use for littoral combat and potential use for shipboard launches, the company said Tuesday.
Multiple Army Longbow Hellfire missiles were fired from a Navy surface vessel at high-speed approaching targets at a range of 6km. The series of tests were the first time that the Longbow was launched vertically and the first time that it locked onto its target after launch. The “fire-and-forget” missile has the capability to lock-on before or after it is launched.
“This demonstration proved that the Longbow missile can counter fast-attack craft in realistic situations, representing an efficient path forward for shipboard launches with a weapon already in government inventory,” Lockheed Martin wrote in a statement.
The tests were conducted near Eglin AFB, Fla.
Previous firing tests saw the missile launched from an Apache helicopter toward a littoral target. The Apache Longbow system has also been combat-proven on land in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Longbow began production in 1996. More than 14,000 missiles have been contracted in the United States and abroad, according to Lockheed Martin.