StrikeMaster Naval Strike Missile clears Norway live firing validation for mobile coastal denial.

Kongsberg and Thales conducted a successful live firing of an NSM test munition from the StrikeMaster launcher on a Bushmaster vehicle at a Norwegian range on 23 October 2025. The shot validates the Australian-configured land-based maritime strike option and positions it for Australia’s Land 8113 decision and wider partner interest.

Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace and Thales Australia confirmed a clean launch of a Naval Strike Missile test round from the StrikeMaster launcher in Norway, a first integrated firing that used Bushmaster as the carrier platform. Company statements describe the round as a blast test vehicle, essentially a booster-equipped test munition used to prove safe sequencing before guided shots, and frame the event as a low-risk validation step toward fielding.
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The projectile used is a blast test vehicle, a test round that houses the Naval Strike Missile (NSM) booster to qualify launch safety and sequencing without expending a full operational missile. This approach verifies launcher mechanics, ejection kinematics, pyrotechnic charges, and vehicle-launcher interfaces before transitioning to guided shots with target acquisition. The use of such rounds is common during development and fits a controlled, fast-track deployment path.

StrikeMaster adopts Kongsberg’s Coastal Defence System (CDS) architecture in an Australian configuration by mounting a twin-pack NSM launcher on the Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicle. The solution includes a Fire Control Centre and a missile resupply vehicle, both on Bushmaster to harmonize support and mobility. The lineage with the Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) is explicit, with the difference that the United States Marine Corps (USMC) employs the Remotely Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary Fires (ROGUE-Fires) on a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), designed for distributed operations. This doctrinal alignment eases interoperability among allies and prepares integration into naval and joint command-and-control architectures.

The Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicle serves as the carrier for a twin NSM launcher in the land configuration, providing protection, mobility, and endurance to the firing element. This 4x4 armored vehicle uses a welded V-hull to deflect blasts from Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) and mines, shields occupants against small-arms fire, and places fuel and hydraulic tanks outside the crew compartment, with a protected emergency tank. It carries a driver and up to nine passengers, exceeds 100 km/h with an operating range of about 800 km, can sustain for up to three days, and offers a ring mount for 5.56 mm or 7.62 mm machine guns for self-defense. These parameters enable shoot-and-scoot tactics, movement on secondary roads or rough tracks, and straightforward integration of the Fire Control Centre and resupply vehicle within a dispersed coastal posture.

On the missile side, the NSM belongs to the stealth generation of fast subsonic sea-skimmers with high-G terminal maneuvers. Three data points summarize published performance. The stated range exceeds 300 km, providing strike depth compatible with coastal anti-access concepts and the interdiction of straits and chokepoints. Launch mass is 407 kg with a length of 3.96 m, which frames the logistics footprint and vehicle sizing. The imaging electro-optical seeker operates fully passively with Autonomous Target Recognition (ATR), useful under Emission Control (EMCON) to limit emissions and remain below adversary detection thresholds.

At the program level, the NSM is selected or in delivery with fourteen countries, and it enters service with the Royal Australian Navy in 2024, as recalled by Australian naval authorities and specialist outlets. This naval baseline enables a coastal land option without missile modification, which rationalizes sustainment while preserving a shared munition inventory across platforms. Australia thus follows a broader trend already illustrated by Poland and the USMC, which deploys NMESIS batteries in the Indo-Pacific.

Tactically, the value of the StrikeMaster-NSM pair lies in mobility and tempo. A twin launcher on Bushmaster supports shoot-and-scoot profiles, dispersion of echelons, movement on secondary routes or austere terrain, and improved survivability against counter-fires and electromagnetic detection. The passive seeker and sea-skimming trajectories reduce adversary warning windows and preserve initiative along the littoral. Effectiveness nonetheless depends on an Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) chain providing quality tracks to the Recognized Maritime Picture (RMP) and Common Operational Picture (COP), whether sourced from air assets, coastal sensors, naval platforms or space relays. In a joint setting, synchronizing sensor illumination windows and firing slots under EMCON becomes decisive, with immediate effects in saturation and in the complexity imposed on adversary alert processing.

Assembly and support for StrikeMaster are split between Kongsberg Defence Australia in Adelaide and Thales Australia in Bendigo, with a supplier base of more than 150 companies and an estimated 700 jobs created or sustained. In parallel, a new missile facility near Newcastle is set to produce the NSM in Australia from 2027, reducing supply-chain vulnerabilities and strengthening the Defence Industrial Base (DIB). This reflects an offset approach aimed at securing in-service support and smoothing delivery schedules in a tight market.

A StrikeMaster battery nested in a wider coastal defense layout creates a graduated denial bubble against surface combatants, enforces avoidance routes and stretches an adversary in depth. Long-range lethality, combined with emission control and profiled trajectories, fits into Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) and kill-web concepts. Interoperability with other NSM users, from Poland to USMC formations, supports shared targeting methods and lessons learned while keeping a lean logistics footprint and common training standards.

The move aligns with Australia’s strategy to secure critical supply chains and develop a credible coastal strike capacity in the Indo-Pacific. The spread of modern land-based anti-ship systems adjusts the conventional deterrence balance and raises the risk of coercive maritime actions near archipelagos and straits. For close partners, alignment around a common missile effect and domestic industrialization reduces interoperability frictions and consolidates a shared capability base. For competitors, the emergence of mobile NSM batteries that are hard to target complicates planning, demands more ISR and counter-targeting activity, and increases the political cost of gray-zone shows of force.